Leveraging control surface fast clears to optimize 3d operations

ABSTRACT

One embodiment provides a graphics processor comprising a hardware graphics rendering pipeline configured to perform multisample anti-aliasing, the hardware graphics rendering pipeline including pixel processing logic to determine that each sample location of a pixel of a multisample surface is associated with a clear value and resolve a color value for the pixel to a non-multisample surface via a write of metadata to indicate that the pixel has the clear value. The resolve can be a stenciled resolve that automatically bypasses execution of a pixel shader for pixels having clear color data.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present patent application is a continuation application claimingpriority from U.S. application Ser. No. 16/546,658, filed Aug. 21, 2019,which claims priority from U.S. application Ser. No. 15/719,381, filedSep. 28, 2017, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 10,445,923 on Oct. 15,2019, the contents of which are incorporated herein in their entirety byreference.

FIELD OF INVENTION

This invention relates generally to data processing and moreparticularly to graphics data processing via a graphics processing unit.

BACKGROUND OF THE DESCRIPTION

3D APIs includes common operations to resolve a multisample anti-aliased(MSAA) texture, copy resource, initialize a texture and generate mipmapsand perform other operations. In all such operations, graphics driverlogic in control of a graphics processor can program a pixel shader tosample from source texture and write to a destination as render target.For texture initialization, the source is simply written to destination.For MSAA resolve and mipmap generation the graphics processor can outputa simple average of the samples color into the non-MSAA destination orthe next mip level. This approach enables color compression when writingto destination render target but does not utilize any cleared statusthat may be set for the source texture.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

So that the manner in which the features of the present embodiments canbe understood in detail, a more particular description of theembodiments, briefly summarized above, may be had by reference toembodiments, some of which are illustrated in the appended drawings. Itis to be noted, however, that the appended drawings illustrate onlytypical embodiments and are therefore not to be considered limiting ofits scope.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a processing system, according to anembodiment;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a processor according to an embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a graphics processor, according to anembodiment;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a graphics processing engine of a graphicsprocessor in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of hardware logic of a graphics processorcore, according to some embodiments described herein.

FIGS. 6A-6B illustrate thread execution logic including an array ofprocessing elements employed in a graphics processor core according toembodiments described herein.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating a graphics processor instructionformats according to some embodiments;

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of a graphics processor according to anotherembodiment.

FIG. 9A-9B illustrate a graphics processor command format and commandsequence, according to some embodiments;

FIG. 10 illustrates exemplary graphics software architecture for a dataprocessing system according to some embodiments;

FIG. 11A is a block diagram illustrating an IP core development system,according to an embodiment;

FIG. 11B illustrates a cross-section side view of an integrated circuitpackage assembly, according to some embodiments described herein;

FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary system on a chipintegrated circuit, according to an embodiment;

FIGS. 13A-13B are block diagrams illustrating exemplary graphicsprocessors for use within an SoC, according to embodiments describedherein;

FIGS. 14A-14B illustrate additional exemplary graphics processor logicaccording to embodiments described herein;

FIG. 15 illustrates an application rendering sequence for optimizingcolor buffer clear performance;

FIGS. 16A-16B illustrates multisample anti-aliasing within a graphicsprocessing system according to embodiments described herein;

FIG. 17 illustrates a process to leverage control surface fast clearsfor 3D operations, according to one embodiment;

FIG. 18 illustrates memory accesses performed to when performing MSAAresolves using fast clears, according to an embodiment;

FIGS. 19A-19B compare memory accesses between optimized and un-optimizedMSAA resolves, according to embodiments described herein;

FIG. 20 illustrates a process for performing stenciled MSAA resolve,according to an embodiment;

FIG. 21 illustrates exemplary graphics processing logic for a stenciledmultisample resolve, according to an embodiment;

FIG. 22 illustrates an additional process for leveraging control surfacefast clears to optimize 3D operations, according to an embodiment;

FIG. 23 illustrates additional hardware logic for leveraging controlsurface fast clears to optimize 3D operations, according to anembodiment; and

FIG. 24 is a block diagram of a computing device configured to performoptimized clear color rendering, according to an embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments described herein enable certain rendering operations to beperformed using reduced reduces memory bandwidth, improving performancefor common 3D operations such as MSAA resolve, static textureinitialization, surface copies, and other operations performed by 3Dgames and benchmarks. A graphics processing unit configured to implementthe described techniques can realized improved overall performance ongaming and benchmark applications, particularly when multi-sampleanti-aliasing is enabled. In addition to improved performance, reducedpower operation can also be realized why applying the techniquesdescribed herein.

In one embodiment, a graphics processor can enhance compression ofrender target data via the use of hardware supported fast clears and acontrol surface for a render target. A control surface enablescompression of a render target, or graphics rendering surface, bystoring metadata about the surface, such as the location of samples forMSAA or an indication that all entries in a cache line are the samecolor. The techniques described herein enable 3D commands to consumefewer resources and consume reduced memory bandwidth during operation,improving the overall performance of the graphics processor and the hostsystem of the graphics processor.

In various embodiments, the graphics processor is configured to preservethe state of a fast clear from a source to destination surface and applythe preserved state to a control surface associated with thedestination. In one embodiment, such techniques can be configured bygraphics driver control software and implemented by shader processinglogic within the graphics processor. In one embodiment, an MSAA resolveis implemented using a shader kernel that is configured such thatwhenever a pixel is cleared in the source MSAA surface, the pixel willremain cleared in the resolved non-MSAA destination surface. In oneembodiment, for texture initialization and mipmap generation theprocessing logic is configurable to recognize that background color islikely a constant clear color. While identifying the clear color incurssome cost, the operation to determine the clear color likely occurs onceand outside of the main render loop of a 3D application. Similar to theMSAA resolve scenario, the shader kernel used to write to destinationsurface is configured such that any cache lines that are set to theclear color will remain cleared in the destination surface.

In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth toprovide a more thorough understanding. However, it will be apparent toone of skill in the art that the embodiments described herein may bepracticed without one or more of these specific details. In otherinstances, well-known features have not been described to avoidobscuring the details of the present embodiments.

In general, a graphics rendering process can generate an image or imagesfrom model data using a wide range of computer implemented techniques.In some graphics rendering implementations an image may be renderedusing rasterization by sampling different functions such as, forexample, a visibility function and/or a shading function. In general,the samples for a visibility function may be termed visibility samplesand the samples for a shading function may be termed shading samples.When implementing techniques such as multi-sampling anti-aliasing(MSAA), multiple visibility samples may be used per. Rendering to amultisample render target that stores multiple samples per pixels ismore bandwidth intensive than using a simple sample. To restrainbandwidth consumption, various forms of compression can be used. Whenlossless color compression techniques are implemented for a multisamplerender target, storing the samples in an interleaved manner can increasethe efficiency of such techniques in comparison to planar techniques ofstoring sample data.

In the description that follows, FIGS. 1-14B provide an overview ofexemplary data processing system and graphics processor logic thatincorporates or relates to the various embodiments. FIGS. 15-18 providespecific details of the various embodiments. FIGS. 19A-23 provide anoverview of machine learning hardware and software architecture. Someaspects of the following embodiments are described with reference to agraphics processor, while other aspects are described with respect to ageneral-purpose processor, such as a central processing unit (CPU).Similar techniques and teachings can be applied to other types ofcircuits or semiconductor devices, including but not limited to a manyintegrated core processor, a GPU cluster, or one or more instances of afield programmable gate array (FPGA). In general, the teachings areapplicable to any processor or machine that manipulates or processesimage (e.g., sample, pixel), vertex data, or geometry data. Theembodiments described herein may be practiced without one or more of thespecific details provided herein. In some instances, well-known featureshave not been described to avoid obscuring the details of the presentembodiments.

System Overview

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a processing system 100, according to anembodiment. In various embodiments the system 100 includes one or moreprocessors 102 and one or more graphics processors 108, and may be asingle processor desktop system, a multiprocessor workstation system, ora server system having a large number of processors 102 or processorcores 107. In one embodiment, the system 100 is a processing platformincorporated within a system-on-a-chip (SoC) integrated circuit for usein mobile, handheld, or embedded devices.

In one embodiment the system 100 can include, or be incorporated withina server-based gaming platform, a game console, including a game andmedia console, a mobile gaming console, a handheld game console, or anonline game console. In some embodiments the system 100 is a mobilephone, smart phone, tablet computing device or mobile Internet device.The processing system 100 can also include, couple with, or beintegrated within a wearable device, such as a smart watch wearabledevice, smart eyewear device, augmented reality device, or virtualreality device. In some embodiments, the processing system 100 is atelevision or set top box device having one or more processors 102 and agraphical interface generated by one or more graphics processors 108.

In some embodiments, the one or more processors 102 each include one ormore processor cores 107 to process instructions which, when executed,perform operations for system and user software. In some embodiments,each of the one or more processor cores 107 is configured to process aspecific instruction set 109. In some embodiments, instruction set 109may facilitate Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC), ReducedInstruction Set Computing (RISC), or computing via a Very LongInstruction Word (VLIW). Multiple processor cores 107 may each process adifferent instruction set 109, which may include instructions tofacilitate the emulation of other instruction sets. Processor core 107may also include other processing devices, such a Digital SignalProcessor (DSP).

In some embodiments, the processor 102 includes cache memory 104.Depending on the architecture, the processor 102 can have a singleinternal cache or multiple levels of internal cache. In someembodiments, the cache memory is shared among various components of theprocessor 102. In some embodiments, the processor 102 also uses anexternal cache (e.g., a Level-3 (L3) cache or Last Level Cache (LLC))(not shown), which may be shared among processor cores 107 using knowncache coherency techniques. A register file 106 is additionally includedin processor 102 which may include different types of registers forstoring different types of data (e.g., integer registers, floating pointregisters, status registers, and an instruction pointer register). Someregisters may be general-purpose registers, while other registers may bespecific to the design of the processor 102.

In some embodiments, one or more processor(s) 102 are coupled with oneor more interface bus(es) 110 to transmit communication signals such asaddress, data, or control signals between processor 102 and othercomponents in the system 100. The interface bus 110, in one embodiment,can be a processor bus, such as a version of the Direct Media Interface(DMI) bus. However, processor busses are not limited to the DMI bus, andmay include one or more Peripheral Component Interconnect buses (e.g.,PCI, PCI Express), memory busses, or other types of interface busses. Inone embodiment the processor(s) 102 include an integrated memorycontroller 116 and a platform controller hub 130. The memory controller116 facilitates communication between a memory device and othercomponents of the system 100, while the platform controller hub (PCH)130 provides connections to I/O devices via a local I/O bus.

The memory device 120 can be a dynamic random access memory (DRAM)device, a static random access memory (SRAM) device, flash memorydevice, phase-change memory device, or some other memory device havingsuitable performance to serve as process memory. In one embodiment thememory device 120 can operate as system memory for the system 100, tostore data 122 and instructions 121 for use when the one or moreprocessors 102 executes an application or process. Memory controller 116also couples with an optional external graphics processor 112, which maycommunicate with the one or more graphics processors 108 in processors102 to perform graphics and media operations. In some embodiments adisplay device 111 can connect to the processor(s) 102. The displaydevice 111 can be one or more of an internal display device, as in amobile electronic device or a laptop device or an external displaydevice attached via a display interface (e.g., DisplayPort, etc.). Inone embodiment the display device 111 can be a head mounted display(HMD) such as a stereoscopic display device for use in virtual reality(VR) applications or augmented reality (AR) applications.

In some embodiments the platform controller hub 130 enables peripheralsto connect to memory device 120 and processor 102 via a high-speed I/Obus. The I/O peripherals include, but are not limited to, an audiocontroller 146, a network controller 134, a firmware interface 128, awireless transceiver 126, touch sensors 125, a data storage device 124(e.g., hard disk drive, flash memory, etc.). The data storage device 124can connect via a storage interface (e.g., SATA) or via a peripheralbus, such as a Peripheral Component Interconnect bus (e.g., PCI, PCIExpress). The touch sensors 125 can include touch screen sensors,pressure sensors, or fingerprint sensors. The wireless transceiver 126can be a Wi-Fi transceiver, a Bluetooth transceiver, or a mobile networktransceiver such as a 3G, 4G, or Long-Term Evolution (LTE) transceiver.The firmware interface 128 enables communication with system firmware,and can be, for example, a unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI).The network controller 134 can enable a network connection to a wirednetwork. In some embodiments, a high-performance network controller (notshown) couples with the interface bus 110. The audio controller 146, inone embodiment, is a multi-channel high definition audio controller. Inone embodiment the system 100 includes an optional legacy I/O controller140 for coupling legacy (e.g., Personal System 2 (PS/2)) devices to thesystem. The platform controller hub 130 can also connect to one or moreUniversal Serial Bus (USB) controllers 142 connect input devices, suchas keyboard and mouse 143 combinations, a camera 144, or other USB inputdevices.

It will be appreciated that the system 100 shown is exemplary and notlimiting, as other types of data processing systems that are differentlyconfigured may also be used. For example, an instance of the memorycontroller 116 and platform controller hub 130 may be integrated into adiscreet external graphics processor, such as the external graphicsprocessor 112. In one embodiment the platform controller hub 130 and/ormemory controller 160 may be external to the one or more processor(s)102. For example, the system 100 can include an external memorycontroller 116 and platform controller hub 130, which may be configuredas a memory controller hub and peripheral controller hub within a systemchipset that is in communication with the processor(s) 102.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a processor 200 having oneor more processor cores 202A-202N, an integrated memory controller 214,and an integrated graphics processor 208. Those elements of FIG. 2having the same reference numbers (or names) as the elements of anyother figure herein can operate or function in any manner similar tothat described elsewhere herein, but are not limited to such. Processor200 can include additional cores up to and including additional core202N represented by the dashed lined boxes. Each of processor cores202A-202N includes one or more internal cache units 204A-204N. In someembodiments each processor core also has access to one or more sharedcached units 206.

The internal cache units 204A-204N and shared cache units 206 representa cache memory hierarchy within the processor 200. The cache memoryhierarchy may include at least one level of instruction and data cachewithin each processor core and one or more levels of shared mid-levelcache, such as a Level 2 (L2), Level 3 (L3), Level 4 (L4), or otherlevels of cache, where the highest level of cache before external memoryis classified as the LLC. In some embodiments, cache coherency logicmaintains coherency between the various cache units 206 and 204A-204N.

In some embodiments, processor 200 may also include a set of one or morebus controller units 216 and a system agent core 210. The one or morebus controller units 216 manage a set of peripheral buses, such as oneor more PCI or PCI express busses. System agent core 210 providesmanagement functionality for the various processor components. In someembodiments, system agent core 210 includes one or more integratedmemory controllers 214 to manage access to various external memorydevices (not shown).

In some embodiments, one or more of the processor cores 202A-202Ninclude support for simultaneous multi-threading. In such embodiment,the system agent core 210 includes components for coordinating andoperating cores 202A-202N during multi-threaded processing. System agentcore 210 may additionally include a power control unit (PCU), whichincludes logic and components to regulate the power state of processorcores 202A-202N and graphics processor 208.

In some embodiments, processor 200 additionally includes graphicsprocessor 208 to execute graphics processing operations. In someembodiments, the graphics processor 208 couples with the set of sharedcache units 206, and the system agent core 210, including the one ormore integrated memory controllers 214. In some embodiments, the systemagent core 210 also includes a display controller 211 to drive graphicsprocessor output to one or more coupled displays. In some embodiments,display controller 211 may also be a separate module coupled with thegraphics processor via at least one interconnect, or may be integratedwithin the graphics processor 208.

In some embodiments, a ring based interconnect unit 212 is used tocouple the internal components of the processor 200. However, analternative interconnect unit may be used, such as a point-to-pointinterconnect, a switched interconnect, or other techniques, includingtechniques well known in the art. In some embodiments, graphicsprocessor 208 couples with the ring interconnect 212 via an I/O link213.

The exemplary I/O link 213 represents at least one of multiple varietiesof I/O interconnects, including an on package I/O interconnect whichfacilitates communication between various processor components and ahigh-performance embedded memory module 218, such as an eDRAM module. Insome embodiments, each of the processor cores 202A-202N and graphicsprocessor 208 use embedded memory modules 218 as a shared Last LevelCache.

In some embodiments, processor cores 202A-202N are homogenous coresexecuting the same instruction set architecture. In another embodiment,processor cores 202A-202N are heterogeneous in terms of instruction setarchitecture (ISA), where one or more of processor cores 202A-202Nexecute a first instruction set, while at least one of the other coresexecutes a subset of the first instruction set or a differentinstruction set. In one embodiment processor cores 202A-202N areheterogeneous in terms of microarchitecture, where one or more coreshaving a relatively higher power consumption couple with one or morepower cores having a lower power consumption. Additionally, processor200 can be implemented on one or more chips or as an SoC integratedcircuit having the illustrated components, in addition to othercomponents.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a graphics processor 300, which may be adiscrete graphics processing unit, or may be a graphics processorintegrated with a plurality of processing cores. In some embodiments,the graphics processor communicates via a memory mapped I/O interface toregisters on the graphics processor and with commands placed into theprocessor memory. In some embodiments, graphics processor 300 includes amemory interface 314 to access memory. Memory interface 314 can be aninterface to local memory, one or more internal caches, one or moreshared external caches, and/or to system memory.

In some embodiments, graphics processor 300 also includes a displaycontroller 302 to drive display output data to a display device 320.Display controller 302 includes hardware for one or more overlay planesfor the display and composition of multiple layers of video or userinterface elements. The display device 320 can be an internal orexternal display device. In one embodiment the display device 320 is ahead mounted display device, such as a virtual reality (VR) displaydevice or an augmented reality (AR) display device. In some embodiments,graphics processor 300 includes a video codec engine 306 to encode,decode, or transcode media to, from, or between one or more mediaencoding formats, including, but not limited to Moving Picture ExpertsGroup (MPEG) formats such as MPEG-2, Advanced Video Coding (AVC) formatssuch as H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, as well as the Society of Motion Picture &Television Engineers (SMPTE) 421M/VC-1, and Joint Photographic ExpertsGroup (JPEG) formats such as JPEG, and Motion JPEG (MJPEG) formats.

In some embodiments, graphics processor 300 includes a block imagetransfer (BLIT) engine 304 to perform two-dimensional (2D) rasterizeroperations including, for example, bit-boundary block transfers.However, in one embodiment, 2D graphics operations are performed usingone or more components of graphics processing engine (GPE) 310. In someembodiments, GPE 310 is a compute engine for performing graphicsoperations, including three-dimensional (3D) graphics operations andmedia operations.

In some embodiments, GPE 310 includes a 3D pipeline 312 for performing3D operations, such as rendering three-dimensional images and scenesusing processing functions that act upon 3D primitive shapes (e.g.,rectangle, triangle, etc.). The 3D pipeline 312 includes programmableand fixed function elements that perform various tasks within theelement and/or spawn execution threads to a 3D/Media sub-system 315.While 3D pipeline 312 can be used to perform media operations, anembodiment of GPE 310 also includes a media pipeline 316 that isspecifically used to perform media operations, such as videopost-processing and image enhancement.

In some embodiments, media pipeline 316 includes fixed function orprogrammable logic units to perform one or more specialized mediaoperations, such as video decode acceleration, video de-interlacing, andvideo encode acceleration in place of, or on behalf of video codecengine 306. In some embodiments, media pipeline 316 additionallyincludes a thread spawning unit to spawn threads for execution on3D/Media sub-system 315. The spawned threads perform computations forthe media operations on one or more graphics execution units included in3D/Media sub-system 315.

In some embodiments, 3D/Media subsystem 315 includes logic for executingthreads spawned by 3D pipeline 312 and media pipeline 316. In oneembodiment, the pipelines send thread execution requests to 3D/Mediasubsystem 315, which includes thread dispatch logic for arbitrating anddispatching the various requests to available thread executionresources. The execution resources include an array of graphicsexecution units to process the 3D and media threads. In someembodiments, 3D/Media subsystem 315 includes one or more internal cachesfor thread instructions and data. In some embodiments, the subsystemalso includes shared memory, including registers and addressable memory,to share data between threads and to store output data.

Graphics Processing Engine

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a graphics processing engine 410 of agraphics processor in accordance with some embodiments. In oneembodiment, the graphics processing engine (GPE) 410 is a version of theGPE 310 shown in FIG. 3. Elements of FIG. 4 having the same referencenumbers (or names) as the elements of any other figure herein canoperate or function in any manner similar to that described elsewhereherein, but are not limited to such. For example, the 3D pipeline 312and media pipeline 316 of FIG. 3 are illustrated. The media pipeline 316is optional in some embodiments of the GPE 410 and may not be explicitlyincluded within the GPE 410. For example and in at least one embodiment,a separate media and/or image processor is coupled to the GPE 410.

In some embodiments, GPE 410 couples with or includes a command streamer403, which provides a command stream to the 3D pipeline 312 and/or mediapipelines 316. In some embodiments, command streamer 403 is coupled withmemory, which can be system memory, or one or more of internal cachememory and shared cache memory. In some embodiments, command streamer403 receives commands from the memory and sends the commands to 3Dpipeline 312 and/or media pipeline 316. The commands are directivesfetched from a ring buffer, which stores commands for the 3D pipeline312 and media pipeline 316. In one embodiment, the ring buffer canadditionally include batch command buffers storing batches of multiplecommands. The commands for the 3D pipeline 312 can also includereferences to data stored in memory, such as but not limited to vertexand geometry data for the 3D pipeline 312 and/or image data and memoryobjects for the media pipeline 316. The 3D pipeline 312 and mediapipeline 316 process the commands and data by performing operations vialogic within the respective pipelines or by dispatching one or moreexecution threads to a graphics core array 414. In one embodiment thegraphics core array 414 include one or more blocks of graphics cores(e.g., graphics core(s) 415A, graphics core(s) 415B), each blockincluding one or more graphics cores. Each graphics core includes a setof graphics execution resources that includes general purpose andgraphics specific execution logic to perform graphics and computeoperations, as well as fixed function texture processing and/or machinelearning and artificial intelligence acceleration logic.

In various embodiments the 3D pipeline 312 includes fixed function andprogrammable logic to process one or more shader programs, such asvertex shaders, geometry shaders, pixel shaders, fragment shaders,compute shaders, or other shader programs, by processing theinstructions and dispatching execution threads to the graphics corearray 414. The graphics core array 414 provides a unified block ofexecution resources for use in processing these shader programs.Multi-purpose execution logic (e.g., execution units) within thegraphics core(s) 415A-414B of the graphic core array 414 includessupport for various 3D API shader languages and can execute multiplesimultaneous execution threads associated with multiple shaders.

In some embodiments the graphics core array 414 also includes executionlogic to perform media functions, such as video and/or image processing.In one embodiment, the execution units additionally includegeneral-purpose logic that is programmable to perform parallel generalpurpose computational operations, in addition to graphics processingoperations. The general purpose logic can perform processing operationsin parallel or in conjunction with general purpose logic within theprocessor core(s) 107 of FIG. 1 or core 202A-202N as in FIG. 2.

Output data generated by threads executing on the graphics core array414 can output data to memory in a unified return buffer (URB) 418. TheURB 418 can store data for multiple threads. In some embodiments the URB418 may be used to send data between different threads executing on thegraphics core array 414. In some embodiments the URB 418 mayadditionally be used for synchronization between threads on the graphicscore array and fixed function logic within the shared function logic420.

In some embodiments, graphics core array 414 is scalable, such that thearray includes a variable number of graphics cores, each having avariable number of execution units based on the target power andperformance level of GPE 410. In one embodiment the execution resourcesare dynamically scalable, such that execution resources may be enabledor disabled as needed.

The graphics core array 414 couples with shared function logic 420 thatincludes multiple resources that are shared between the graphics coresin the graphics core array. The shared functions within the sharedfunction logic 420 are hardware logic units that provide specializedsupplemental functionality to the graphics core array 414. In variousembodiments, shared function logic 420 includes but is not limited tosampler 421, math 422, and inter-thread communication (ITC) 423 logic.Additionally, some embodiments implement one or more cache(s) 425 withinthe shared function logic 420.

A shared function is implemented where the demand for a givenspecialized function is insufficient for inclusion within the graphicscore array 414. Instead a single instantiation of that specializedfunction is implemented as a stand-alone entity in the shared functionlogic 420 and shared among the execution resources within the graphicscore array 414. The precise set of functions that are shared between thegraphics core array 414 and included within the graphics core array 414varies across embodiments. In some embodiments, specific sharedfunctions within the shared function logic 420 that are used extensivelyby the graphics core array 414 may be included within shared functionlogic 416 within the graphics core array 414. In various embodiments,the shared function logic 416 within the graphics core array 414 caninclude some or all logic within the shared function logic 420. In oneembodiment, all logic elements within the shared function logic 420 maybe duplicated within the shared function logic 416 of the graphics corearray 414. In one embodiment the shared function logic 420 is excludedin favor of the shared function logic 416 within the graphics core array414.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of hardware logic of a graphics processor core500, according to some embodiments described herein. Elements of FIG. 5having the same reference numbers (or names) as the elements of anyother figure herein can operate or function in any manner similar tothat described elsewhere herein, but are not limited to such. Theillustrated graphics processor core 500, in some embodiments, isincluded within the graphics core array 414 of FIG. 4. The graphicsprocessor core 500, sometimes referred to as a core slice, can be one ormultiple graphics cores within a modular graphics processor. Thegraphics processor core 500 is exemplary of one graphics core slice, anda graphics processor as described herein may include multiple graphicscore slices based on target power and performance envelopes. Eachgraphics core 500 can include a fixed function block 530 coupled withmultiple sub-cores 501A-501F, also referred to as sub-slices, thatinclude modular blocks of general purpose and fixed function logic.

In some embodiments the fixed function block 530 includes ageometry/fixed function pipeline 536 that can be shared by all sub-coresin the graphics processor 500, for example, in lower performance and/orlower power graphics processor implementations. In various embodiments,the geometry/fixed function pipeline 536 includes a 3D fixed functionpipeline (e.g., 3D pipeline 312 as in FIG. 3 and FIG. 4) a videofront-end unit, a thread spawner and thread dispatcher, and a unifiedreturn buffer manager, which manages unified return buffers, such as theunified return buffer 418 of FIG. 4.

In one embodiment the fixed function block 530 also includes a graphicsSoC interface 537, a graphics microcontroller 538, and a media pipeline539. The graphics SoC interface 537 provides an interface between thegraphics core 500 and other processor cores within a system on a chipintegrated circuit. The graphics microcontroller 538 is a programmablesub-processor that is configurable to manage various functions of thegraphics processor 500, including thread dispatch, scheduling, andpre-emption. The media pipeline 539 (e.g., media pipeline 316 of FIG. 3and FIG. 4) includes logic to facilitate the decoding, encoding,pre-processing, and/or post-processing of multimedia data, includingimage and video data. The media pipeline 539 implement media operationsvia requests to compute or sampling logic within the sub-cores 501-501F.

In one embodiment the SoC interface 537 enables the graphics core 500 tocommunicate with general purpose application processor cores (e.g.,CPUs) and/or other components within an SoC, including memory hierarchyelements such as a shared last level cache memory, the system RAM,and/or embedded on-chip or on-package DRAM. The SoC interface 537 canalso enable communication with fixed function devices within the SoC,such as camera imaging pipelines, and enables the use of and/orimplements global memory atomics that may be shared between the graphicscore 500 and CPUs within the SoC. The SoC interface 537 can alsoimplement power management controls for the graphics core 500 and enablean interface between a clock domain of the graphic core 500 and otherclock domains within the SoC. In one embodiment the SoC interface 537enables receipt of command buffers from a command streamer and globalthread dispatcher that are configured to provide commands andinstructions to each of one or more graphics cores within a graphicsprocessor. The commands and instructions can be dispatched to the mediapipeline 539, when media operations are to be performed, or a geometryand fixed function pipeline (e.g., geometry and fixed function pipeline536, geometry and fixed function pipeline 514) when graphics processingoperations are to be performed.

The graphics microcontroller 538 can be configured to perform variousscheduling and management tasks for the graphics core 500. In oneembodiment the graphics microcontroller 538 can perform graphics and/orcompute workload scheduling on the various graphics parallel engineswithin execution unit (EU) arrays 502A-502F, 504A-504F within thesub-cores 501A-501F. In this scheduling model, host software executingon a CPU core of an SoC including the graphics core 500 can submitworkloads one of multiple graphic processor doorbells, which invokes ascheduling operation on the appropriate graphics engine. Schedulingoperations include determining which workload to run next, submitting aworkload to a command streamer, pre-empting existing workloads runningon an engine, monitoring progress of a workload, and notifying hostsoftware when a workload is complete. In one embodiment the graphicsmicrocontroller 538 can also facilitate low-power or idle states for thegraphics core 500, providing the graphics core 500 with the ability tosave and restore registers within the graphics core 500 across low-powerstate transitions independently from the operating system and/orgraphics driver software on the system.

The graphics core 500 may have greater than or fewer than theillustrated sub-cores 501A-501F, up to N modular sub-cores. For each setof N sub-cores, the graphics core 500 can also include shared functionlogic 510, shared and/or cache memory 512, a geometry/fixed functionpipeline 514, as well as additional fixed function logic 516 toaccelerate various graphics and compute processing operations. Theshared function logic 510 can include logic units associated with theshared function logic 420 of FIG. 4 (e.g., sampler, math, and/orinter-thread communication logic) that can be shared by each N sub-coreswithin the graphics core 500. The shared and/or cache memory 512 can bea last-level cache for the set of N sub-cores 501A-501F within thegraphics core 500, and can also serve as shared memory that isaccessible by multiple sub-cores. The geometry/fixed function pipeline514 can be included instead of the geometry/fixed function pipeline 536within the fixed function block 530 and can include the same or similarlogic units.

In one embodiment the graphics core 500 includes additional fixedfunction logic 516 that can include various fixed function accelerationlogic for use by the graphics core 500. In one embodiment the additionalfixed function logic 516 includes an additional geometry pipeline foruse in position only shading. In position-only shading, two geometrypipelines exist, the full geometry pipeline within the geometry/fixedfunction pipeline 516, 536, and a cull pipeline, which is an additionalgeometry pipeline which may be included within the additional fixedfunction logic 516. In one embodiment the cull pipeline is a trimmeddown version of the full geometry pipeline. The full pipeline and thecull pipeline can execute different instances of the same application,each instance having a separate context. Position only shading can hidelong cull runs of discarded triangles, enabling shading to be completedearlier in some instances. For example and in one embodiment the cullpipeline logic within the additional fixed function logic 516 canexecute position shaders in parallel with the main application andgenerally generates critical results faster than the full pipeline, asthe cull pipeline fetches and shades only the position attribute of thevertices, without performing rasterization and rendering of the pixelsto the frame buffer. The cull pipeline can use the generated criticalresults to compute visibility information for all the triangles withoutregard to whether those triangles are culled. The full pipeline (whichin this instance may be referred to as a replay pipeline) can consumethe visibility information to skip the culled triangles to shade onlythe visible triangles that are finally passed to the rasterizationphase.

In one embodiment the additional fixed function logic 516 can alsoinclude machine-learning acceleration logic, such as fixed functionmatrix multiplication logic, for implementations including optimizationsfor machine learning training or inferencing.

Within each graphics sub-core 501A-501F includes a set of executionresources that may be used to perform graphics, media, and computeoperations in response to requests by graphics pipeline, media pipeline,or shader programs. The graphics sub-cores 501A-501F include multiple EUarrays 502A-502F, 504A-504F, thread dispatch and inter-threadcommunication (TD/IC) logic 503A-503F, a 3D (e.g., texture) sampler505A-505F, a media sampler 506A-506F, a shader processor 507A-507F, andshared local memory (SLM) 508A-508F. The EU arrays 502A-502F, 504A-504Feach include multiple execution units, which are general-purposegraphics processing units capable of performing floating-point andinteger/fixed-point logic operations in service of a graphics, media, orcompute operation, including graphics, media, or compute shaderprograms. The TD/IC logic 503A-503F performs local thread dispatch andthread control operations for the execution units within a sub-core andfacilitate communication between threads executing on the executionunits of the sub-core. The 3D sampler 505A-505F can read texture orother 3D graphics related data into memory. The 3D sampler can readtexture data differently based on a configured sample state and thetexture format associated with a given texture. The media sampler506A-506F can perform similar read operations based on the type andformat associated with media data. In one embodiment, each graphicssub-core 501A-501F can alternately include a unified 3D and mediasampler. Threads executing on the execution units within each of thesub-cores 501A-501F can make use of shared local memory 508A-508F withineach sub-core, to enable threads executing within a thread group toexecute using a common pool of on-chip memory.

Execution Units

FIGS. 6A-6B illustrate thread execution logic 600 including an array ofprocessing elements employed in a graphics processor core according toembodiments described herein. Elements of FIGS. 6A-6B having the samereference numbers (or names) as the elements of any other figure hereincan operate or function in any manner similar to that describedelsewhere herein, but are not limited to such. FIG. 6A illustrates anoverview of thread execution logic 600, which can include a variant ofthe hardware logic illustrated with each sub-core 501A-501F of FIG. 5.FIG. 6B illustrates exemplary internal details of an execution unit.

As illustrated in FIG. 6A, in some embodiments thread execution logic600 includes a shader processor 602, a thread dispatcher 604,instruction cache 606, a scalable execution unit array including aplurality of execution units 608A-608N, a sampler 610, a data cache 612,and a data port 614. In one embodiment the scalable execution unit arraycan dynamically scale by enabling or disabling one or more executionunits (e.g., any of execution unit 608A, 608B, 608C, 608D, through608N-1 and 608N) based on the computational requirements of a workload.In one embodiment the included components are interconnected via aninterconnect fabric that links to each of the components. In someembodiments, thread execution logic 600 includes one or more connectionsto memory, such as system memory or cache memory, through one or more ofinstruction cache 606, data port 614, sampler 610, and execution units608A-608N. In some embodiments, each execution unit (e.g. 608A) is astand-alone programmable general purpose computational unit that iscapable of executing multiple simultaneous hardware threads whileprocessing multiple data elements in parallel for each thread. Invarious embodiments, the array of execution units 608A-608N is scalableto include any number individual execution units.

In some embodiments, the execution units 608A-608N are primarily used toexecute shader programs. A shader processor 602 can process the variousshader programs and dispatch execution threads associated with theshader programs via a thread dispatcher 604. In one embodiment thethread dispatcher includes logic to arbitrate thread initiation requestsfrom the graphics and media pipelines and instantiate the requestedthreads on one or more execution unit in the execution units 608A-608N.For example, a geometry pipeline can dispatch vertex, tessellation, orgeometry shaders to the thread execution logic for processing. In someembodiments, thread dispatcher 604 can also process runtime threadspawning requests from the executing shader programs.

In some embodiments, the execution units 608A-608N support aninstruction set that includes native support for many standard 3Dgraphics shader instructions, such that shader programs from graphicslibraries (e.g., Direct 3D and OpenGL) are executed with a minimaltranslation. The execution units support vertex and geometry processing(e.g., vertex programs, geometry programs, vertex shaders), pixelprocessing (e.g., pixel shaders, fragment shaders) and general-purposeprocessing (e.g., compute and media shaders). Each of the executionunits 608A-608N is capable of multi-issue single instruction multipledata (SIMD) execution and multi-threaded operation enables an efficientexecution environment in the face of higher latency memory accesses.Each hardware thread within each execution unit has a dedicatedhigh-bandwidth register file and associated independent thread-state.Execution is multi-issue per clock to pipelines capable of integer,single and double precision floating point operations, SIMD branchcapability, logical operations, transcendental operations, and othermiscellaneous operations. While waiting for data from memory or one ofthe shared functions, dependency logic within the execution units608A-608N causes a waiting thread to sleep until the requested data hasbeen returned. While the waiting thread is sleeping, hardware resourcesmay be devoted to processing other threads. For example, during a delayassociated with a vertex shader operation, an execution unit can performoperations for a pixel shader, fragment shader, or another type ofshader program, including a different vertex shader.

Each execution unit in execution units 608A-608N operates on arrays ofdata elements. The number of data elements is the “execution size,” orthe number of channels for the instruction. An execution channel is alogical unit of execution for data element access, masking, and flowcontrol within instructions. The number of channels may be independentof the number of physical Arithmetic Logic Units (ALUs) or FloatingPoint Units (FPUs) for a particular graphics processor. In someembodiments, execution units 608A-608N support integer andfloating-point data types.

The execution unit instruction set includes SIMD instructions. Thevarious data elements can be stored as a packed data type in a registerand the execution unit will process the various elements based on thedata size of the elements. For example, when operating on a 256-bit widevector, the 256 bits of the vector are stored in a register and theexecution unit operates on the vector as four separate 64-bit packeddata elements (Quad-Word (QW) size data elements), eight separate 32-bitpacked data elements (Double Word (DW) size data elements), sixteenseparate 16-bit packed data elements (Word (W) size data elements), orthirty-two separate 8-bit data elements (byte (B) size data elements).However, different vector widths and register sizes are possible.

In one embodiment one or more execution units can be combined into afused execution unit 609A-609N having thread control logic (607A-607N)that is common to the fused EUs. Multiple EUs can be fused into an EUgroup. Each EU in the fused EU group can be configured to execute aseparate SIMD hardware thread. The number of EUs in a fused EU group canvary according to embodiments. Additionally, various SIMD widths can beperformed per-EU, including but not limited to SIMD8, SIMD16, andSIMD32. Each fused graphics execution unit 609A-609N includes at leasttwo execution units. For example, fused execution unit 609A includes afirst EU 608A, second EU 608B, and thread control logic 607A that iscommon to the first EU 608A and the second EU 608B. The thread controllogic 607A controls threads executed on the fused graphics executionunit 609A, allowing each EU within the fused execution units 609A-609Nto execute using a common instruction pointer register.

One or more internal instruction caches (e.g., 606) are included in thethread execution logic 600 to cache thread instructions for theexecution units. In some embodiments, one or more data caches (e.g.,612) are included to cache thread data during thread execution. In someembodiments, a sampler 610 is included to provide texture sampling for3D operations and media sampling for media operations. In someembodiments, sampler 610 includes specialized texture or media samplingfunctionality to process texture or media data during the samplingprocess before providing the sampled data to an execution unit.

During execution, the graphics and media pipelines send threadinitiation requests to thread execution logic 600 via thread spawningand dispatch logic. Once a group of geometric objects has been processedand rasterized into pixel data, pixel processor logic (e.g., pixelshader logic, fragment shader logic, etc.) within the shader processor602 is invoked to further compute output information and cause resultsto be written to output surfaces (e.g., color buffers, depth buffers,stencil buffers, etc.). In some embodiments, a pixel shader or fragmentshader calculates the values of the various vertex attributes that areto be interpolated across the rasterized object. In some embodiments,pixel processor logic within the shader processor 602 then executes anapplication programming interface (API)-supplied pixel or fragmentshader program. To execute the shader program, the shader processor 602dispatches threads to an execution unit (e.g., 608A) via threaddispatcher 604. In some embodiments, shader processor 602 uses texturesampling logic in the sampler 610 to access texture data in texture mapsstored in memory. Arithmetic operations on the texture data and theinput geometry data compute pixel color data for each geometricfragment, or discards one or more pixels from further processing.

In some embodiments, the data port 614 provides a memory accessmechanism for the thread execution logic 600 to output processed data tomemory for further processing on a graphics processor output pipeline.In some embodiments, the data port 614 includes or couples to one ormore cache memories (e.g., data cache 612) to cache data for memoryaccess via the data port.

As illustrated in FIG. 6B, a graphics execution unit 608 can include aninstruction fetch unit 637, a general register file array (GRF) 624, anarchitectural register file array (ARF) 626, a thread arbiter 622, asend unit 630, a branch unit 632, a set of SIMD floating point units(FPUs) 634, and in one embodiment a set of dedicated integer SIMD ALUs635. The GRF 624 and ARF 626 includes the set of general register filesand architecture register files associated with each simultaneoushardware thread that may be active in the graphics execution unit 608.In one embodiment, per thread architectural state is maintained in theARF 626, while data used during thread execution is stored in the GRF624. The execution state of each thread, including the instructionpointers for each thread, can be held in thread-specific registers inthe ARF 626.

In one embodiment the graphics execution unit 608 has an architecturethat is a combination of Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) andfine-grained Interleaved Multi-Threading (IMT). The architecture has amodular configuration that can be fine-tuned at design time based on atarget number of simultaneous threads and number of registers perexecution unit, where execution unit resources are divided across logicused to execute multiple simultaneous threads.

In one embodiment, the graphics execution unit 608 can co-issue multipleinstructions, which may each be different instructions. The threadarbiter 622 of the graphics execution unit 608 can dispatch theinstructions to one of the send unit 630, branch unit 642, or SIMDFPU(s) 634 for execution. Each execution thread can access 128general-purpose registers within the GRF 624, where each register canstore 32 bytes, accessible as a SIMD 8-element vector of 32-bit dataelements. In one embodiment, each execution unit thread has access to 4Kbytes within the GRF 624, although embodiments are not so limited, andgreater or fewer register resources may be provided in otherembodiments. In one embodiment up to seven threads can executesimultaneously, although the number of threads per execution unit canalso vary according to embodiments. In an embodiment in which seventhreads may access 4 Kbytes, the GRF 624 can store a total of 28 Kbytes.Flexible addressing modes can permit registers to be addressed togetherto build effectively wider registers or to represent strided rectangularblock data structures.

In one embodiment, memory operations, sampler operations, and otherlonger-latency system communications are dispatched via “send”instructions that are executed by the message passing send unit 630. Inone embodiment, branch instructions are dispatched to a dedicated branchunit 632 to facilitate SIMD divergence and eventual convergence.

In one embodiment the graphics execution unit 608 includes one or moreSIMD floating point units (FPU(s)) 634 to perform floating-pointoperations. In one embodiment, the FPU(s) 634 also support integercomputation. In one embodiment the FPU(s) 634 can SIMD execute up to Mnumber of 32-bit floating-point (or integer) operations, or SIMD executeup to 2M 16-bit integer or 16-bit floating-point operations. In oneembodiment, at least one of the FPU(s) provides extended math capabilityto support high-throughput transcendental math functions and doubleprecision 64-bit floating-point. In some embodiments, a set of 8-bitinteger SIMD ALUs 635 are also present, and may be specificallyoptimized to perform operations associated with machine learningcomputations.

In one embodiment, arrays of multiple instances of the graphicsexecution unit 608 can be instantiated in a graphics sub-core grouping(e.g., a sub-slice). For scalability, product architects can chose theexact number of execution units per sub-core grouping. In one embodimentthe execution unit 608 can execute instructions across a plurality ofexecution channels. In a further embodiment, each thread executed on thegraphics execution unit 608 is executed on a different channel.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating a graphics processor instructionformats 700 according to some embodiments. In one or more embodiment,the graphics processor execution units support an instruction set havinginstructions in multiple formats. The solid lined boxes illustrate thecomponents that are generally included in an execution unit instruction,while the dashed lines include components that are optional or that areonly included in a sub-set of the instructions. In some embodiments,instruction format 700 described and illustrated are macro-instructions,in that they are instructions supplied to the execution unit, as opposedto micro-operations resulting from instruction decode once theinstruction is processed.

In some embodiments, the graphics processor execution units nativelysupport instructions in a 128-bit instruction format 710. A 64-bitcompacted instruction format 730 is available for some instructionsbased on the selected instruction, instruction options, and number ofoperands. The native 128-bit instruction format 710 provides access toall instruction options, while some options and operations arerestricted in the 64-bit format 730. The native instructions availablein the 64-bit format 730 vary by embodiment. In some embodiments, theinstruction is compacted in part using a set of index values in an indexfield 713. The execution unit hardware references a set of compactiontables based on the index values and uses the compaction table outputsto reconstruct a native instruction in the 128-bit instruction format710.

For each format, instruction opcode 712 defines the operation that theexecution unit is to perform. The execution units execute eachinstruction in parallel across the multiple data elements of eachoperand. For example, in response to an add instruction the executionunit performs a simultaneous add operation across each color channelrepresenting a texture element or picture element. By default, theexecution unit performs each instruction across all data channels of theoperands. In some embodiments, instruction control field 714 enablescontrol over certain execution options, such as channels selection(e.g., predication) and data channel order (e.g., swizzle). Forinstructions in the 128-bit instruction format 710 an exec-size field716 limits the number of data channels that will be executed inparallel. In some embodiments, exec-size field 716 is not available foruse in the 64-bit compact instruction format 730.

Some execution unit instructions have up to three operands including twosource operands, src0 720, src1 722, and one destination 718. In someembodiments, the execution units support dual destination instructions,where one of the destinations is implied. Data manipulation instructionscan have a third source operand (e.g., SRC2 724), where the instructionopcode 712 determines the number of source operands. An instruction'slast source operand can be an immediate (e.g., hard-coded) value passedwith the instruction.

In some embodiments, the 128-bit instruction format 710 includes anaccess/address mode field 726 specifying, for example, whether directregister addressing mode or indirect register addressing mode is used.When direct register addressing mode is used, the register address ofone or more operands is directly provided by bits in the instruction.

In some embodiments, the 128-bit instruction format 710 includes anaccess/address mode field 726, which specifies an address mode and/or anaccess mode for the instruction. In one embodiment the access mode isused to define a data access alignment for the instruction. Someembodiments support access modes including a 16-byte aligned access modeand a 1-byte aligned access mode, where the byte alignment of the accessmode determines the access alignment of the instruction operands. Forexample, when in a first mode, the instruction may use byte-alignedaddressing for source and destination operands and when in a secondmode, the instruction may use 16-byte-aligned addressing for all sourceand destination operands.

In one embodiment, the address mode portion of the access/address modefield 726 determines whether the instruction is to use direct orindirect addressing. When direct register addressing mode is used bitsin the instruction directly provide the register address of one or moreoperands. When indirect register addressing mode is used, the registeraddress of one or more operands may be computed based on an addressregister value and an address immediate field in the instruction.

In some embodiments instructions are grouped based on opcode 712bit-fields to simplify Opcode decode 740. For an 8-bit opcode, bits 4,5, and 6 allow the execution unit to determine the type of opcode. Theprecise opcode grouping shown is merely an example. In some embodiments,a move and logic opcode group 742 includes data movement and logicinstructions (e.g., move (mov), compare (cmp)). In some embodiments,move and logic opcode group 742 shares the five most significant bits(MSB), where move (mov) instructions are in the form of 0000xxxxb andlogic instructions are in the form of 0001xxxxb. A flow controlinstruction group 744 (e.g., call, jump (jmp)) includes instructions inthe form of 0010xxxxb (e.g., 0x20). A miscellaneous instruction group746 includes a mix of instructions, including synchronizationinstructions (e.g., wait, send) in the form of 0011xxxxb (e.g., 0x30). Aparallel math instruction group 748 includes component-wise arithmeticinstructions (e.g., add, multiply (mul)) in the form of 0100xxxxb (e.g.,0x40). The parallel math group 748 performs the arithmetic operations inparallel across data channels. The vector math group 750 includesarithmetic instructions (e.g., dp4) in the form of 0101xxxxb (e.g.,0x50). The vector math group performs arithmetic such as dot productcalculations on vector operands.

Graphics Pipeline

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of another embodiment of a graphics processor800. Elements of FIG. 8 having the same reference numbers (or names) asthe elements of any other figure herein can operate or function in anymanner similar to that described elsewhere herein, but are not limitedto such.

In some embodiments, graphics processor 800 includes a geometry pipeline820, a media pipeline 830, a display engine 840, thread execution logic850, and a render output pipeline 870. In some embodiments, graphicsprocessor 800 is a graphics processor within a multi-core processingsystem that includes one or more general purpose processing cores. Thegraphics processor is controlled by register writes to one or morecontrol registers (not shown) or via commands issued to graphicsprocessor 800 via a ring interconnect 802. In some embodiments, ringinterconnect 802 couples graphics processor 800 to other processingcomponents, such as other graphics processors or general-purposeprocessors. Commands from ring interconnect 802 are interpreted by acommand streamer 803, which supplies instructions to individualcomponents of the geometry pipeline 820 or the media pipeline 830.

In some embodiments, command streamer 803 directs the operation of avertex fetcher 805 that reads vertex data from memory and executesvertex-processing commands provided by command streamer 803. In someembodiments, vertex fetcher 805 provides vertex data to a vertex shader807, which performs coordinate space transformation and lightingoperations to each vertex. In some embodiments, vertex fetcher 805 andvertex shader 807 execute vertex-processing instructions by dispatchingexecution threads to execution units 852A-852B via a thread dispatcher831.

In some embodiments, execution units 852A-852B are an array of vectorprocessors having an instruction set for performing graphics and mediaoperations. In some embodiments, execution units 852A-852B have anattached L1 cache 851 that is specific for each array or shared betweenthe arrays. The cache can be configured as a data cache, an instructioncache, or a single cache that is partitioned to contain data andinstructions in different partitions.

In some embodiments, geometry pipeline 820 includes tessellationcomponents to perform hardware-accelerated tessellation of 3D objects.In some embodiments, a programmable hull shader 811 configures thetessellation operations. A programmable domain shader 817 providesback-end evaluation of tessellation output. A tessellator 813 operatesat the direction of hull shader 811 and contains special purpose logicto generate a set of detailed geometric objects based on a coarsegeometric model that is provided as input to geometry pipeline 820. Insome embodiments, if tessellation is not used, tessellation components(e.g., hull shader 811, tessellator 813, and domain shader 817) can bebypassed.

In some embodiments, complete geometric objects can be processed by ageometry shader 819 via one or more threads dispatched to executionunits 852A-852B, or can proceed directly to the clipper 829. In someembodiments, the geometry shader operates on entire geometric objects,rather than vertices or patches of vertices as in previous stages of thegraphics pipeline. If the tessellation is disabled the geometry shader819 receives input from the vertex shader 807. In some embodiments,geometry shader 819 is programmable by a geometry shader program toperform geometry tessellation if the tessellation units are disabled.

Before rasterization, a clipper 829 processes vertex data. The clipper829 may be a fixed function clipper or a programmable clipper havingclipping and geometry shader functions. In some embodiments, arasterizer and depth test component 873 in the render output pipeline870 dispatches pixel shaders to convert the geometric objects into perpixel representations. In some embodiments, pixel shader logic isincluded in thread execution logic 850. In some embodiments, anapplication can bypass the rasterizer and depth test component 873 andaccess un-rasterized vertex data via a stream out unit 823.

The graphics processor 800 has an interconnect bus, interconnect fabric,or some other interconnect mechanism that allows data and messagepassing amongst the major components of the processor. In someembodiments, execution units 852A-852B and associated logic units (e.g.,L1 cache 851, sampler 854, texture cache 858, etc.) interconnect via adata port 856 to perform memory access and communicate with renderoutput pipeline components of the processor. In some embodiments,sampler 854, caches 851, 858 and execution units 852A-852B each haveseparate memory access paths. In one embodiment the texture cache 858can also be configured as a sampler cache.

In some embodiments, render output pipeline 870 contains a rasterizerand depth test component 873 that converts vertex-based objects into anassociated pixel-based representation. In some embodiments, therasterizer logic includes a windower/masker unit to perform fixedfunction triangle and line rasterization. An associated render cache 878and depth cache 879 are also available in some embodiments. A pixeloperations component 877 performs pixel-based operations on the data,though in some instances, pixel operations associated with 2D operations(e.g. bit block image transfers with blending) are performed by the 2Dengine 841, or substituted at display time by the display controller 843using overlay display planes. In some embodiments, a shared L3 cache 875is available to all graphics components, allowing the sharing of datawithout the use of main system memory.

In some embodiments, graphics processor media pipeline 830 includes amedia engine 837 and a video front-end 834. In some embodiments, videofront-end 834 receives pipeline commands from the command streamer 803.In some embodiments, media pipeline 830 includes a separate commandstreamer. In some embodiments, video front-end 834 processes mediacommands before sending the command to the media engine 837. In someembodiments, media engine 837 includes thread spawning functionality tospawn threads for dispatch to thread execution logic 850 via threaddispatcher 831.

In some embodiments, graphics processor 800 includes a display engine840. In some embodiments, display engine 840 is external to graphicsprocessor 800 and couples with the graphics processor via the ringinterconnect 802, or some other interconnect bus or fabric. In someembodiments, display engine 840 includes a 2D engine 841 and a displaycontroller 843. In some embodiments, display engine 840 contains specialpurpose logic capable of operating independently of the 3D pipeline. Insome embodiments, display controller 843 couples with a display device(not shown), which may be a system integrated display device, as in alaptop computer, or an external display device attached via a displaydevice connector.

In some embodiments, the geometry pipeline 820 and media pipeline 830are configurable to perform operations based on multiple graphics andmedia programming interfaces and are not specific to any one applicationprogramming interface (API). In some embodiments, driver software forthe graphics processor translates API calls that are specific to aparticular graphics or media library into commands that can be processedby the graphics processor. In some embodiments, support is provided forthe Open Graphics Library (OpenGL), Open Computing Language (OpenCL),and/or Vulkan graphics and compute API, all from the Khronos Group. Insome embodiments, support may also be provided for the Direct3D libraryfrom the Microsoft Corporation. In some embodiments, a combination ofthese libraries may be supported. Support may also be provided for theOpen Source Computer Vision Library (OpenCV). A future API with acompatible 3D pipeline would also be supported if a mapping can be madefrom the pipeline of the future API to the pipeline of the graphicsprocessor.

Graphics Pipeline Programming

FIG. 9A is a block diagram illustrating a graphics processor commandformat 900 according to some embodiments. FIG. 9B is a block diagramillustrating a graphics processor command sequence 910 according to anembodiment. The solid lined boxes in FIG. 9A illustrate the componentsthat are generally included in a graphics command while the dashed linesinclude components that are optional or that are only included in asub-set of the graphics commands. The exemplary graphics processorcommand format 900 of FIG. 9A includes data fields to identify a client902, a command operation code (opcode) 904, and data 906 for thecommand. A sub-opcode 905 and a command size 908 are also included insome commands.

In some embodiments, client 902 specifies the client unit of thegraphics device that processes the command data. In some embodiments, agraphics processor command parser examines the client field of eachcommand to condition the further processing of the command and route thecommand data to the appropriate client unit. In some embodiments, thegraphics processor client units include a memory interface unit, arender unit, a 2D unit, a 3D unit, and a media unit. Each client unithas a corresponding processing pipeline that processes the commands.Once the command is received by the client unit, the client unit readsthe opcode 904 and, if present, sub-opcode 905 to determine theoperation to perform. The client unit performs the command usinginformation in data field 906. For some commands an explicit commandsize 908 is expected to specify the size of the command. In someembodiments, the command parser automatically determines the size of atleast some of the commands based on the command opcode. In someembodiments commands are aligned via multiples of a double word.

The flow diagram in FIG. 9B illustrates an exemplary graphics processorcommand sequence 910. In some embodiments, software or firmware of adata processing system that features an embodiment of a graphicsprocessor uses a version of the command sequence shown to set up,execute, and terminate a set of graphics operations. A sample commandsequence is shown and described for purposes of example only asembodiments are not limited to these specific commands or to thiscommand sequence. Moreover, the commands may be issued as batch ofcommands in a command sequence, such that the graphics processor willprocess the sequence of commands in at least partially concurrence.

In some embodiments, the graphics processor command sequence 910 maybegin with a pipeline flush command 912 to cause any active graphicspipeline to complete the currently pending commands for the pipeline. Insome embodiments, the 3D pipeline 922 and the media pipeline 924 do notoperate concurrently. The pipeline flush is performed to cause theactive graphics pipeline to complete any pending commands. In responseto a pipeline flush, the command parser for the graphics processor willpause command processing until the active drawing engines completepending operations and the relevant read caches are invalidated.Optionally, any data in the render cache that is marked ‘dirty’ can beflushed to memory. In some embodiments, pipeline flush command 912 canbe used for pipeline synchronization or before placing the graphicsprocessor into a low power state.

In some embodiments, a pipeline select command 913 is used when acommand sequence requires the graphics processor to explicitly switchbetween pipelines. In some embodiments, a pipeline select command 913 isrequired only once within an execution context before issuing pipelinecommands unless the context is to issue commands for both pipelines. Insome embodiments, a pipeline flush command 912 is required immediatelybefore a pipeline switch via the pipeline select command 913.

In some embodiments, a pipeline control command 914 configures agraphics pipeline for operation and is used to program the 3D pipeline922 and the media pipeline 924. In some embodiments, pipeline controlcommand 914 configures the pipeline state for the active pipeline. Inone embodiment, the pipeline control command 914 is used for pipelinesynchronization and to clear data from one or more cache memories withinthe active pipeline before processing a batch of commands.

In some embodiments, return buffer state commands 916 are used toconfigure a set of return buffers for the respective pipelines to writedata. Some pipeline operations require the allocation, selection, orconfiguration of one or more return buffers into which the operationswrite intermediate data during processing. In some embodiments, thegraphics processor also uses one or more return buffers to store outputdata and to perform cross thread communication. In some embodiments, thereturn buffer state 916 includes selecting the size and number of returnbuffers to use for a set of pipeline operations.

The remaining commands in the command sequence differ based on theactive pipeline for operations. Based on a pipeline determination 920,the command sequence is tailored to the 3D pipeline 922 beginning withthe 3D pipeline state 930 or the media pipeline 924 beginning at themedia pipeline state 940.

The commands to configure the 3D pipeline state 930 include 3D statesetting commands for vertex buffer state, vertex element state, constantcolor state, depth buffer state, and other state variables that are tobe configured before 3D primitive commands are processed. The values ofthese commands are determined at least in part based on the particular3D API in use. In some embodiments, 3D pipeline state 930 commands arealso able to selectively disable or bypass certain pipeline elements ifthose elements will not be used.

In some embodiments, 3D primitive 932 command is used to submit 3Dprimitives to be processed by the 3D pipeline. Commands and associatedparameters that are passed to the graphics processor via the 3Dprimitive 932 command are forwarded to the vertex fetch function in thegraphics pipeline. The vertex fetch function uses the 3D primitive 932command data to generate vertex data structures. The vertex datastructures are stored in one or more return buffers. In someembodiments, 3D primitive 932 command is used to perform vertexoperations on 3D primitives via vertex shaders. To process vertexshaders, 3D pipeline 922 dispatches shader execution threads to graphicsprocessor execution units.

In some embodiments, 3D pipeline 922 is triggered via an execute 934command or event. In some embodiments, a register write triggers commandexecution. In some embodiments execution is triggered via a ‘go’ or‘kick’ command in the command sequence. In one embodiment, commandexecution is triggered using a pipeline synchronization command to flushthe command sequence through the graphics pipeline. The 3D pipeline willperform geometry processing for the 3D primitives. Once operations arecomplete, the resulting geometric objects are rasterized and the pixelengine colors the resulting pixels. Additional commands to control pixelshading and pixel back end operations may also be included for thoseoperations.

In some embodiments, the graphics processor command sequence 910 followsthe media pipeline 924 path when performing media operations. Ingeneral, the specific use and manner of programming for the mediapipeline 924 depends on the media or compute operations to be performed.Specific media decode operations may be offloaded to the media pipelineduring media decode. In some embodiments, the media pipeline can also bebypassed and media decode can be performed in whole or in part usingresources provided by one or more general purpose processing cores. Inone embodiment, the media pipeline also includes elements forgeneral-purpose graphics processor unit (GPGPU) operations, where thegraphics processor is used to perform SIMD vector operations usingcomputational shader programs that are not explicitly related to therendering of graphics primitives.

In some embodiments, media pipeline 924 is configured in a similarmanner as the 3D pipeline 922. A set of commands to configure the mediapipeline state 940 are dispatched or placed into a command queue beforethe media object commands 942. In some embodiments, commands for themedia pipeline state 940 include data to configure the media pipelineelements that will be used to process the media objects. This includesdata to configure the video decode and video encode logic within themedia pipeline, such as encode or decode format. In some embodiments,commands for the media pipeline state 940 also support the use of one ormore pointers to “indirect” state elements that contain a batch of statesettings.

In some embodiments, media object commands 942 supply pointers to mediaobjects for processing by the media pipeline. The media objects includememory buffers containing video data to be processed. In someembodiments, all media pipeline states must be valid before issuing amedia object command 942. Once the pipeline state is configured andmedia object commands 942 are queued, the media pipeline 924 istriggered via an execute command 944 or an equivalent execute event(e.g., register write). Output from media pipeline 924 may then be postprocessed by operations provided by the 3D pipeline 922 or the mediapipeline 924. In some embodiments, GPGPU operations are configured andexecuted in a similar manner as media operations.

Graphics Software Architecture

FIG. 10 illustrates exemplary graphics software architecture for a dataprocessing system 1000 according to some embodiments. In someembodiments, software architecture includes a 3D graphics application1010, an operating system 1020, and at least one processor 1030. In someembodiments, processor 1030 includes a graphics processor 1032 and oneor more general-purpose processor core(s) 1034. The graphics application1010 and operating system 1020 each execute in the system memory 1050 ofthe data processing system.

In some embodiments, 3D graphics application 1010 contains one or moreshader programs including shader instructions 1012. The shader languageinstructions may be in a high-level shader language, such as the HighLevel Shader Language (HLSL) or the OpenGL Shader Language (GLSL). Theapplication also includes executable instructions 1014 in a machinelanguage suitable for execution by the general-purpose processor core1034. The application also includes graphics objects 1016 defined byvertex data.

In some embodiments, operating system 1020 is a Microsoft® Windows®operating system from the Microsoft Corporation, a proprietary UNIX-likeoperating system, or an open source UNIX-like operating system using avariant of the Linux kernel. The operating system 1020 can support agraphics API 1022 such as the Direct3D API, the OpenGL API, or theVulkan API. When the Direct3D API is in use, the operating system 1020uses a front-end shader compiler 1024 to compile any shader instructions1012 in HLSL into a lower-level shader language. The compilation may bea just-in-time (JIT) compilation or the application can perform shaderpre-compilation. In some embodiments, high-level shaders are compiledinto low-level shaders during the compilation of the 3D graphicsapplication 1010. In some embodiments, the shader instructions 1012 areprovided in an intermediate form, such as a version of the StandardPortable Intermediate Representation (SPIR) used by the Vulkan API.

In some embodiments, user mode graphics driver 1026 contains a back-endshader compiler 1027 to convert the shader instructions 1012 into ahardware specific representation. When the OpenGL API is in use, shaderinstructions 1012 in the GLSL high-level language are passed to a usermode graphics driver 1026 for compilation. In some embodiments, usermode graphics driver 1026 uses operating system kernel mode functions1028 to communicate with a kernel mode graphics driver 1029. In someembodiments, kernel mode graphics driver 1029 communicates with graphicsprocessor 1032 to dispatch commands and instructions.

IP Core Implementations

One or more aspects of at least one embodiment may be implemented byrepresentative code stored on a machine-readable medium which representsand/or defines logic within an integrated circuit such as a processor.For example, the machine-readable medium may include instructions whichrepresent various logic within the processor. When read by a machine,the instructions may cause the machine to fabricate the logic to performthe techniques described herein. Such representations, known as “IPcores,” are reusable units of logic for an integrated circuit that maybe stored on a tangible, machine-readable medium as a hardware modelthat describes the structure of the integrated circuit. The hardwaremodel may be supplied to various customers or manufacturing facilities,which load the hardware model on fabrication machines that manufacturethe integrated circuit. The integrated circuit may be fabricated suchthat the circuit performs operations described in association with anyof the embodiments described herein.

FIG. 11A is a block diagram illustrating an IP core development system1100 that may be used to manufacture an integrated circuit to performoperations according to an embodiment. The IP core development system1100 may be used to generate modular, re-usable designs that can beincorporated into a larger design or used to construct an entireintegrated circuit (e.g., an SOC integrated circuit). A design facility1130 can generate a software simulation 1110 of an IP core design in ahigh level programming language (e.g., C/C++). The software simulation1110 can be used to design, test, and verify the behavior of the IP coreusing a simulation model 1112. The simulation model 1112 may includefunctional, behavioral, and/or timing simulations. A register transferlevel (RTL) design 1115 can then be created or synthesized from thesimulation model 1112. The RTL design 1115 is an abstraction of thebehavior of the integrated circuit that models the flow of digitalsignals between hardware registers, including the associated logicperformed using the modeled digital signals. In addition to an RTLdesign 1115, lower-level designs at the logic level or transistor levelmay also be created, designed, or synthesized. Thus, the particulardetails of the initial design and simulation may vary.

The RTL design 1115 or equivalent may be further synthesized by thedesign facility into a hardware model 1120, which may be in a hardwaredescription language (HDL), or some other representation of physicaldesign data. The HDL may be further simulated or tested to verify the IPcore design. The IP core design can be stored for delivery to a 3rdparty fabrication facility 1165 using non-volatile memory 1140 (e.g.,hard disk, flash memory, or any non-volatile storage medium).Alternatively, the IP core design may be transmitted (e.g., via theInternet) over a wired connection 1150 or wireless connection 1160. Thefabrication facility 1165 may then fabricate an integrated circuit thatis based at least in part on the IP core design. The fabricatedintegrated circuit can be configured to perform operations in accordancewith at least one embodiment described herein.

FIG. 11B illustrates a cross-section side view of an integrated circuitpackage assembly 1170, according to some embodiments described herein.The integrated circuit package assembly 1170 illustrates animplementation of one or more processor or accelerator devices asdescribed herein. The package assembly 1170 includes multiple units ofhardware logic 1172, 1174 connected to a substrate 1180. The logic 1172,1174 may be implemented at least partly in configurable logic orfixed-functionality logic hardware, and can include one or more portionsof any of the processor core(s), graphics processor(s), or otheraccelerator devices described herein. Each unit of logic 1172, 1174 canbe implemented within a semiconductor die and coupled with the substrate1180 via an interconnect structure 1173. The interconnect structure 1173may be configured to route electrical signals between the logic 1172,1174 and the substrate 1180, and can include interconnects such as, butnot limited to bumps or pillars. In some embodiments, the interconnectstructure 1173 may be configured to route electrical signals such as,for example, input/output (I/O) signals and/or power or ground signalsassociated with the operation of the logic 1172, 1174. In someembodiments, the substrate 1180 is an epoxy-based laminate substrate.The package substrate 1180 may include other suitable types ofsubstrates in other embodiments. The package assembly 1170 can beconnected to other electrical devices via a package interconnect 1183.The package interconnect 1183 may be coupled to a surface of thesubstrate 1180 to route electrical signals to other electrical devices,such as a motherboard, other chipset, or multi-chip module.

In some embodiments, the units of logic 1172, 1174 are electricallycoupled with a bridge 1182 that is configured to route electricalsignals between the logic 1172, 1174. The bridge 1182 may be a denseinterconnect structure that provides a route for electrical signals. Thebridge 1182 may include a bridge substrate composed of glass or asuitable semiconductor material. Electrical routing features can beformed on the bridge substrate to provide a chip-to-chip connectionbetween the logic 1172, 1174.

Although two units of logic 1172, 1174 and a bridge 1182 areillustrated, embodiments described herein may include more or fewerlogic units on one or more dies. The one or more dies may be connectedby zero or more bridges, as the bridge 1182 may be excluded when thelogic is included on a single die. Alternatively, multiple dies or unitsof logic can be connected by one or more bridges. Additionally, multiplelogic units, dies, and bridges can be connected together in otherpossible configurations, including three-dimensional configurations.

Exemplary System on a Chip Integrated Circuit

FIGS. 12-14B illustrated exemplary integrated circuits and associatedgraphics processors that may be fabricated using one or more IP cores,according to various embodiments described herein. In addition to whatis illustrated, other logic and circuits may be included, includingadditional graphics processors/cores, peripheral interface controllers,or general purpose processor cores.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary system on a chipintegrated circuit 1200 that may be fabricated using one or more IPcores, according to an embodiment. Exemplary integrated circuit 1200includes one or more application processor(s) 1205 (e.g., CPUs), atleast one graphics processor 1210, and may additionally include an imageprocessor 1215 and/or a video processor 1220, any of which may be amodular IP core from the same or multiple different design facilities.Integrated circuit 1200 includes peripheral or bus logic including a USBcontroller 1225, UART controller 1230, an SPI/SDIO controller 1235, andan I²S/I²C controller 1240. Additionally, the integrated circuit caninclude a display device 1245 coupled to one or more of ahigh-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) controller 1250 and a mobileindustry processor interface (MIPI) display interface 1255. Storage maybe provided by a flash memory subsystem 1260 including flash memory anda flash memory controller. Memory interface may be provided via a memorycontroller 1265 for access to SDRAM or SRAM memory devices. Someintegrated circuits additionally include an embedded security engine1270.

FIGS. 13A-13B are block diagrams illustrating exemplary graphicsprocessors for use within an SoC, according to embodiments describedherein. FIG. 13A illustrates an exemplary graphics processor 1310 of asystem on a chip integrated circuit that may be fabricated using one ormore IP cores, according to an embodiment. FIG. 13B illustrates anadditional exemplary graphics processor 1340 of a system on a chipintegrated circuit that may be fabricated using one or more IP cores,according to an embodiment. Graphics processor 1310 of FIG. 13A is anexample of a low power graphics processor core. Graphics processor 1340of FIG. 13B is an example of a higher performance graphics processorcore. Each of the graphics processors 1310, 1340 can be variants of thegraphics processor 1210 of FIG. 12.

As shown in FIG. 13A, graphics processor 1310 includes a vertexprocessor 1305 and one or more fragment processor(s) 1315A-1315N (e.g.,1315A, 1315B, 1315C, 1315D, through 1315N-1, and 1315N). Graphicsprocessor 1310 can execute different shader programs via separate logic,such that the vertex processor 1305 is optimized to execute operationsfor vertex shader programs, while the one or more fragment processor(s)1315A-1315N execute fragment (e.g., pixel) shading operations forfragment or pixel shader programs. The vertex processor 1305 performsthe vertex processing stage of the 3D graphics pipeline and generatesprimitives and vertex data. The fragment processor(s) 1315A-1315N usethe primitive and vertex data generated by the vertex processor 1305 toproduce a framebuffer that is displayed on a display device. In oneembodiment, the fragment processor(s) 1315A-1315N are optimized toexecute fragment shader programs as provided for in the OpenGL API,which may be used to perform similar operations as a pixel shaderprogram as provided for in the Direct 3D API.

Graphics processor 1310 additionally includes one or more memorymanagement units (MMUs) 1320A-1320B, cache(s) 1325A-1325B, and circuitinterconnect(s) 1330A-1330B. The one or more MMU(s) 1320A-1320B providefor virtual to physical address mapping for the graphics processor 1310,including for the vertex processor 1305 and/or fragment processor(s)1315A-1315N, which may reference vertex or image/texture data stored inmemory, in addition to vertex or image/texture data stored in the one ormore cache(s) 1325A-1325B. In one embodiment the one or more MMU(s)1320A-1320B may be synchronized with other MMUs within the system,including one or more MMUs associated with the one or more applicationprocessor(s) 1205, image processor 1215, and/or video processor 1220 ofFIG. 12, such that each processor 1205-1220 can participate in a sharedor unified virtual memory system. The one or more circuitinterconnect(s) 1330A-1330B enable graphics processor 1310 to interfacewith other IP cores within the SoC, either via an internal bus of theSoC or via a direct connection, according to embodiments.

As shown FIG. 13B, graphics processor 1340 includes the one or moreMMU(s) 1320A-1320B, caches 1325A-1325B, and circuit interconnects1330A-1330B of the graphics processor 1310 of FIG. 13A. Graphicsprocessor 1340 includes one or more shader core(s) 1355A-1355N (e.g.,1455A, 1355B, 1355C, 1355D, 1355E, 1355F, through 1355N-1, and 1355N),which provides for a unified shader core architecture in which a singlecore or type or core can execute all types of programmable shader code,including shader program code to implement vertex shaders, fragmentshaders, and/or compute shaders. The exact number of shader corespresent can vary among embodiments and implementations. Additionally,graphics processor 1340 includes an inter-core task manager 1345, whichacts as a thread dispatcher to dispatch execution threads to one or moreshader cores 1355A-1355N and a tiling unit 1358 to accelerate tilingoperations for tile-based rendering, in which rendering operations for ascene are subdivided in image space, for example to exploit localspatial coherence within a scene or to optimize use of internal caches.

FIGS. 14A-14B illustrate additional exemplary graphics processor logicaccording to embodiments described herein. FIG. 14A illustrates agraphics core 1400 that may be included within the graphics processor1210 of FIG. 12, and may be a unified shader core 1355A-1355N as in FIG.13B. FIG. 14B illustrates a highly-parallel general-purpose graphicsprocessing unit 1430 suitable for deployment on a multi-chip module.

As shown in FIG. 14A, the graphics core 1400 includes a sharedinstruction cache 1402, a texture unit 1418, and a cache/shared memory1420 that are common to the execution resources within the graphics core1400. The graphics core 1400 can include multiple slices 1401A-1401N orpartition for each core, and a graphics processor can include multipleinstances of the graphics core 1400. The slices 1401A-1401N can includesupport logic including a local instruction cache 1404A-1404N, a threadscheduler 1406A-1406N, a thread dispatcher 1408A-1408N, and a set ofregisters 1410A. To perform logic operations, the slices 1401A-1401N caninclude a set of additional function units (AFUs 1412A-1412N),floating-point units (FPU 1414A-1414N), integer arithmetic logic units(ALUs 1416-1416N), address computational units (ACU 1413A-1413N),double-precision floating-point units (DPFPU 1415A-1415N), and matrixprocessing units (MPU 1417A-1417N).

Some of the computational units operate at a specific precision. Forexample, the FPUs 1414A-1414N can perform single-precision (32-bit) andhalf-precision (16-bit) floating point operations, while the DPFPUs1415A-1415N perform double precision (64-bit) floating point operations.The ALUs 1416A-1416N can perform variable precision integer operationsat 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit precision, and can be configured for mixedprecision operations. The MPUs 1417A-1417N can also be configured formixed precision matrix operations, including half-precision floatingpoint and 8-bit integer operations. The MPUs 1417-1417N can perform avariety of matrix operations to accelerate machine learning applicationframeworks, including enabling support for accelerated general matrix tomatrix multiplication (GEMM). The AFUs 1412A-1412N can performadditional logic operations not supported by the floating-point orinteger units, including trigonometric operations (e.g., Sine, Cosine,etc.).

As shown in FIG. 14B, a general-purpose processing unit (GPGPU) 1430 canbe configured to enable highly-parallel compute operations to beperformed by an array of graphics processing units. Additionally, theGPGPU 1430 can be linked directly to other instances of the GPGPU tocreate a multi-GPU cluster to improve training speed for particularlydeep neural networks. The GPGPU 1430 includes a host interface 1432 toenable a connection with a host processor. In one embodiment the hostinterface 1432 is a PCI Express interface. However, the host interfacecan also be a vendor specific communications interface or communicationsfabric. The GPGPU 1430 receives commands from the host processor anduses a global scheduler 1434 to distribute execution threads associatedwith those commands to a set of compute clusters 1436A-1436H. Thecompute clusters 1436A-1436H share a cache memory 1438. The cache memory1438 can serve as a higher-level cache for cache memories within thecompute clusters 1436A-1436H.

The GPGPU 1430 includes memory 1434A-1434B coupled with the computeclusters 1436A-1436H via a set of memory controllers 1442A-1442B. Invarious embodiments, the memory 1434A-1434B can include various types ofmemory devices including dynamic random access memory (DRAM) or graphicsrandom access memory, such as synchronous graphics random access memory(SGRAM), including graphics double data rate (GDDR) memory.

In one embodiment the compute clusters 1436A-1436H each include a set ofgraphics cores, such as the graphics core 1400 of FIG. 14A, which caninclude multiple types of integer and floating point logic units thatcan perform computational operations at a range of precisions includingsuited for machine learning computations. For example and in oneembodiment at least a subset of the floating point units in each of thecompute clusters 1436A-1436H can be configured to perform 16-bit or32-bit floating point operations, while a different subset of thefloating point units can be configured to perform 64-bit floating pointoperations.

Multiple instances of the GPGPU 1430 can be configured to operate as acompute cluster. The communication mechanism used by the compute clusterfor synchronization and data exchange varies across embodiments. In oneembodiment the multiple instances of the GPGPU 1430 communicate over thehost interface 1432. In one embodiment the GPGPU 1430 includes an I/Ohub 1439 that couples the GPGPU 1430 with a GPU link 1440 that enables adirect connection to other instances of the GPGPU. In one embodiment theGPU link 1440 is coupled to a dedicated GPU-to-GPU bridge that enablescommunication and synchronization between multiple instances of theGPGPU 1430. In one embodiment the GPU link 1440 couples with a highspeed interconnect to transmit and receive data to other GPGPUs orparallel processors. In one embodiment the multiple instances of theGPGPU 1430 are located in separate data processing systems andcommunicate via a network device that is accessible via the hostinterface 1432. In one embodiment the GPU link 1440 can be configured toenable a connection to a host processor in addition to or as analternative to the host interface 1432.

While the illustrated configuration of the GPGPU 1430 can be configuredto train neural networks, one embodiment provides alternateconfiguration of the GPGPU 1430 that can be configured for deploymentwithin a high performance or low power inferencing platform. In aninferencing configuration the GPGPU 1430 includes fewer of the computeclusters 1436A-1436H relative to the training configuration.Additionally, the memory technology associated with the memory1434A-1434B may differ between inferencing and training configurations,with higher bandwidth memory technologies devoted to trainingconfigurations. In one embodiment the inferencing configuration of theGPGPU 1430 can support inferencing specific instructions. For example,an inferencing configuration can provide support for one or more 8-bitinteger dot product instructions, which are commonly used duringinferencing operations for deployed neural networks.

Fast Clears Using Clear Metadata

In most common rendering scenarios, an application will perform a clearoperation on a framebuffer before rendering to the framebuffer. In oneimplementation, the clear operation is optimized using a set of controlbits. Instead of clearing the framebuffer, cache lines representing theframebuffer are marked as “CLEAR.” This represents a significantoptimization because one or two control bits can represent multiplecache lines. When areas of the framebuffer are rendered, the controlbits can be marked as “DATA,” “COMPRESSED,” or other states thatindicate that the framebuffer includes data that data is to be read fromthe frame buffer.

Graphics hardware having end-to-end clear color optimizations cansuppresses clear writes having the same color as the clear color, aswell as optimizing the sampler and display hardware to take advantage ofthe clear color. When cache lines with “CLEAR” control bits are to befetched for other operations, instead of fetching the clear color byreading the framebuffer memory, the data in the framebuffer issubstituted with the clear color value in a register. Additionally, iflines of a framebuffer are rendered using a color that matches the clearcolor, the state of the control bits for that region of the framebuffercan be marked as CLEAR. When the lines are marked as CLEAR instead ofDATA, the graphics processor is not required to write out CLEAR cachelines of the framebuffer. Instead, the graphics processor unit (GPU)updates control bits in a control surface associated with the relevantlines of the framebuffer.

FIG. 15 illustrates an application rendering sequence for optimizingcolor buffer clear performance. The illustrated sequence begins withframebuffer 1511A of a frame being cleared with a color (e.g., green,blue, red, black, white, etc.). As illustrated, after this initialclearing operation, framebuffer 1511A may be regarded as a clearframebuffer with a single color occupying all its portions. The numberof pixels or memory written for the clear is the full framebuffer.

Subsequently, as illustrated, any amount and type of data may berendered to occupy corresponding regions 1515, 1517 of framebuffer1511B. For example, multiple graphics images can occupy regions 1515,1517 and the corresponding memory buffers of framebuffer 1511B. It isfurther illustrated that upon having occupied regions 1515, 1517 offramebuffer 1511B, the remaining region 1513 of framebuffer 1511B andits associate memory buffers remain clear as it was previously the casewith reference to framebuffer 1511A. However, it is to be noted thateven though regions 1515 and 1517 were over-written with other contentand hence there was no need to clear them, they were cleared when thefull framebuffer was cleared in 1511A.

The wasted clear operations can be optimized in some embodiments. In onesuch embodiment, clear operations are optimized by tracking the state ofthe framebuffer instead of performing an actual clear. The states offramebuffer 1511A and 1511B are further illustrated with reference toframebuffer 1511C and 1511D, respectively. Framebuffer 1511C isillustrated as a hash square, where each little hash square may bereferred to by secondary control bits. Each hash square represents ablock of memory in the framebuffer and in one embodiment could representa cache line or multiple cache lines in another embodiment.

In one implementation, three control bits (e.g., labeled and referencedas A, B, and C) are illustrated as corresponding to regions 1513, 1515,and 1517. When the framebuffer is cleared, instead of clearing theframebuffer, the control bits are set to cleared state. Here, the threecontrol bits, such as A, B, and C, are shown in the cleared (e.g.,CLEAR) state corresponding to and reflecting the state of framebuffer1511A. In one embodiment, value 0 represents CLEAR and accordingly, A=0,B=0, and C=0. The data in the actual framebuffer may be invalid, as theclear operation has been skipped.

Framebuffer 1511D is shown in a rendered state which corresponds toframebuffer 1511B and accordingly, regions 1515 and 1517 are shown asbeing rendered and occupied and their corresponding control bits, suchas B and C, are shown as having a value of 1. In one embodiment, value 1represents a DATA state, which indicates that valid data has beenwritten to the cache lines. Accordingly, control bit B=1 and control bitC=1, while control bit A continues to have a value of 0, whichrepresents a CLEAR state. A is indicated as CLEAR because A has not beenwritten after the clear operation was performed in 1511C. Stateddifferently, while control bits B and C represent the rendered parts,such as 1515 and 1517, representing valid data, while control bit Acontinues to represent the background part, such as 1513, which shouldbe in clear state.

MSAA Rendering

FIGS. 16A-16B illustrates multisample anti-aliasing within a graphicsprocessing system according to embodiments described herein. FIG. 16Aillustrates an exemplary memory layout for a multisample render target.FIG. 16B is a block diagram of a graphics processing system havingsupport for multisample render targets.

The pixel output from the rendering of geometric primitives may resultin distortion artifacts known as aliasing. Aliasing can result whenevera high-resolution image is represented at a lower resolution.Anti-aliasing removes signal components that have a higher frequencythan can properly be resolved via the rendered samples. In the specificcase of triangle rasterization, aliasing can result is jagged edges inrendered images. Anti-aliasing improves the appearance of rendered edgesby smoothing the rendered results. In the specific case of multisamplinganti-abasing (MSAA) multiple locations are sampled for every pixel. Eachsample represents a potential output color for the pixels. If a triangleto be rasterized covers multiple sample locations within a pixel, ashading computation is performed for the samples and the results arecombined to generate an output color for the pixel. The multiplesample's per pixel can be output to a multisample render target.

As shown in FIG. 16A, a multisample render target can store multiplesamples output for each pixel. In some existing multisample rendertarget implementations, pixels can be represented in a planar format, inwhich each set of samples is stored in a separate memory plane. However,implementations are not limited to the use of the illustrated planarformat. FIG. 16A illustrates 4×MSAA in which four samples are used perpixel. A 3×3 pixel tile 702 of nine pixels (A-I) is represented.

While a 3×3 pixel tile 1602 of nine pixels is illustrated, the pixeltile 1602 may include any number of pixels. For example and in oneembodiment the pixel tile 1602 may be an 8×4 pixel tile including 32pixels. Each set of samples for the tile can be stored in a separateplane (e.g., planes 1604A-1604D). In one embodiment the number of planethat are allocated is determined by the number of distinct colorsassociated with the various samples. For example, if the four sampleshave four different color values, four color plane are used. If a singlevalue is present for all samples, only a single value is stored in asingle plane. Before a final image is output, an MSAA resolve operationis performed on the tile in which the color values for each sample of apixel are combined. If only a single value is stored for a pixel, theresolve operation uses the single value. In one embodiment, if multipledifferent color values are stored for differing samples for a pixel, thecolor values may be averaged.

The graphics processing system of FIG. 16B includes a graphics pipeline1620 having vertex processor 1621, a pixel processor 1622, a cachecontroller 1623, and a cache 1624. In one embodiment the cache 1624 is arender target cache that includes or is associated with decompression1626 and compression 1628 logic. The graphics pipeline 1620 can coupleto a memory 1610, which can include a higher level of cache memory,local memory, system memory, or other memory in which a surface for useby the graphics processor may be stored. The vertex processor 1621 andpixel processor 1622, in one embodiment, are implemented as shaderprograms that can be processed by a shader unit within a shader engineas described herein. The shader unit can process the shader programs andexecute computational operations for the shader programs using graphicsexecution logic as described herein.

In one embodiment the graphics pipeline 1620 can allocate space for amultisample render target (e.g., MSAA render target 1612) in memory1610. The pixel processor 1622 can render the multiple samples for eachpixel to the MSAA render target 1612. As the sample data is written, thepixel processor can store the sample data in the cache 1624. The sampledata can be compressed via compression 1628 logic before the samples arestored to the MSAA render target 1612 in memory. When the MSAA rendertarget 1612 is read from memory, the data can be decompressed viadecompression 1626 logic.

The compression 1628 logic can attempt lossless compression on the datafor the MSAA render target 1612 via a lossless color compressionalgorithm, such as a delta color compression algorithm or anotherlossless compression algorithm suitable for compressing color data.Additionally, the compression 1628 logic can perform multisamplecompression to remove duplicate color values from the set of samples,such that, for example, only distinct sample color values are stored foreach pixel. The multisample compression and the lossless compression canbe performed as distinct operations. For example, multisamplecompression to remove duplicate samples can be performed before losslesscompression of the color data to be stored in the MSAA render target1612. In one embodiment the pixel processor 1622 can be configured withmultisample compression logic such that only unique sample color valuesare output for a pixel.

In one embodiment, a control surface 1606 for the MSAA render target1612 is stored in memory to indicate the compression status for one ormore portions (e.g., tiles) of the MSAA render target 1612. In oneembodiment if the compression 1628 logic can compress a data tile of theMSAA render target 1612 without loss of data, the data tile is stored inmemory in a compressed format and the control surface 1606 for the tileis updated to indicate that the tile is compressed. Additionally, thecontrol surface 1606 can also be used to map stored color data tomultiple samples of a pixel. If the compression 1628 logic is not ableto compress a data tile of the MSAA render target 1612 without loss,then uncompressed data of the tile is stored in memory 1610 and one ormore metadata flags or bits can be set to indicate that the data isuncompressed. Thus, the MSAA render target 1612 can have some data tilesthat are compressed and some that are uncompressed.

Optimized Resolve for an MSAA Render Target

Implementations of MSAA resolve known in the art do not utilize thecleared status of the source texture. As a result, every sample is readfrom the MSAA source texture and a normal write occurs for thedestination non-MSAA texture. As a result, the full compression benefitsof fast clear when reading/writing the destination texture may not berealized. In the case of a cleared pixel, the optimized MSAA resolvelogic described herein is only required to read the control surface ofthe source surface. For a typical 4×MSAA 64-bits per pixel surface, areduction from 33 bytes per pixel to 1 byte per pixel can be realized,with a 9 to 1 reduction realized in the event only a single color isstored for the multiple samples. Additionally, only the control surfaceof the destination surface needs to be updated. The reduction in memorybandwidth is higher than known color compression solutions, translatinginto significant performance improvements. Moreover, additionalbandwidth savings can be realized if the non-MSAA surface issubsequently read as a texture, as the sampler hardware is only requiredto read the control surface and the clear color.

FIG. 17 illustrates a process 1700 to leverage control surface fastclears for 3D operations, according to one embodiment. The process 1700can be used to enable an optimized MSAA resolve by leveraging graphicsprocessor hardware support for fast clears. In one embodiment, graphicscontrol software, such as a graphics driver, can configure a graphicsprocessing unit to perform the process 1700 in two passes. Thus, aportion of the process 1700 can be performed by a general-purpose orapplication processor and a portion of the process 1700 can be performedby execution units within a graphics processor as described herein.

In the first pass, a multisample fast clear can be performed on thedestination texture using the clear color of the source surface. Themultisample fast clear, in one embodiment, includes reading the sourceclear color value, as shown at block 1702, and clearing the destinationcontrol surface to indicate that all pixels are cleared, as shown atblock 1704. In various embodiments, the clear color for the sourcesurface can be read from a register (e.g., a clear color register) or alocation in memory. In some implementations, the clear color can be readfrom metadata associated with the source surface, such as multisamplemetadata and/or compression metadata. The process 1700 may store thesource clear color as intermediate data and provide the source clearcolor as an input to the fast-clear operation performed on thedestination surface at block 1704.

In the second pass, a full render target draw can be performed on thedestination. During the render draw, an MSAA resolve shader is executedat a shader engine, as shown at block 1706. For each pixel, the resolveshader can read the control surface, as shown at block 1708, and checksif the corresponding source pixel is cleared at block 1709. If thecontrol surface indicates that the pixel is cleared, then the pixel isdiscarded at block 1712, avoiding the memory bandwidth consumptionassociated with reading any of the samples and/or writing thedestination color. If a pixel is not cleared, then a normal resolve isperformed, in which the samples are read and the average color iswritten to the destination, as shown at block 1710. In one embodimentthe reading of the control surface does not introduce additionaloverhead, as the control surface must be read in order to load thecorrect samples.

FIG. 18 illustrates memory accesses performed to when performing MSAAresolves using fast clears, according to an embodiment. Memory 1810accessible to a shader unit 1803 can store multisample data for a sourcesurface 1812 having multiple planes (e.g. plane 1812A, plane 1812B), asource control surface 1814, a destination control surface 1816, and adestination surface 1818. The multisample render target may be an MSAArender target 1612 as in FIG. 16B. The source control surface 1816 maybe similar to the control surface 1606 as in FIG. 16B. The memory 1810can be memory that is local to the shader unit and can be stored incarious caches, on-die memory, or on-board memory of a graphicsprocessor. The memory 1810 can also be system memory that is mapped intoan address space accessible by the shader unit 1803. The shader unit1803 can be a shader processor as described herein, such as a pixelshader or fragment shader. At least some operations illustrated asperformed by the shader unit 1803 can also be performed by ageneral-purpose graphics processor execution unit under the direction ofshader processing logic.

The destination control surface 1818 may be similar to the controlsurface 1606 of FIG. 16B, although the metadata stored in a controlsurfaces can vary depending on the type of surface with which themetadata is associated. For example, multisample render targets cancontain metadata with respect to multisample color compression, as wellas fast clear metadata and/or lossless compression metadata, whilenon-multisample render targets may lack the metadata for multisamplecolor compression. Furthermore, the specific format and layout in whichthe metadata is stored within a given control surface can vary acrossembodiments.

The memory accesses are illustrative of the two operational phases ofprocess 1700 of FIG. 17. During the first phase 1801, the shader unit1803 can perform a fast clear of the destination surface 1818 by writingclear metadata to the destination control surface 1816. During thesecond phase, the shader unit 1803 reads the source control surface1814. If the source control surface 1814 indicates that a pixel of thesource surface is cleared, then execution ends and the pixel isdiscarded. If the pixel of the source surface is not cleared, the shaderunit 1803 reads the source samples for the pixel from the source surface1812, resolves (e.g., averages) the color values, writes the resolvedcolor value to the destination surface 1818, and updates the destinationcontrol surface 1816 to indicate that the written pixel is has data(e.g., is not clear). Where MSAA compression is enabled, the number ofplanes or regions of the source surface depends on the number ofdifferently colored samples are associated with a pixel. Where twoplanes or regions are read (e.g., plane 1812A, plane 1812B), twodifferent colors are stored for the pixel. If the multiple samplescontain a single color, then a single plane (e.g., 1812A) may be readand written to the destination surface 1818.

FIGS. 19A-19B compare memory accesses between optimized and un-optimizedMSAA resolves, according to embodiments described herein. FIG. 19Aillustrates an un-optimized MSAA resolve for two, differently coloredsamples. If the optimization described herein is disabled, the resolveshader 1904 may trigger memory accesses to read the color data formultiple samples 1901A-1902B of a pixel within a multisample rendertarget, as well as the source control surface 1903. The resolve shader1904 may trigger further memory accesses by writing the resolved colorvalue to the destination surface 1906 and updating the destinationcontrol surface 1905 to indicate that the pixel contains color data.FIG. 19A illustrates an optimized resolve, in which an optimized resolveshader 1914 can resolve a pixel by performing a read from the sourcecontrol surface 1903 and a write to the destination control surface1905. When the source control surface 1903 indicates that the pixel isclear, no pixel data is read from the source surface. A portion of anintermediate representation for an exemplary optimized resolve shader1914 is shown in Table 1 below. In the optimized resolve shader of Table1, the resolve shader will discard a pixel in the event the sourcecontrol surface indicates that the pixel is clear.

TABLE 1 Intermediate Representation of Optimized Resolve Shader } ... %6= call <2 x i32> @ldmcsptr.v2i32.p196608v4f32(i32 %3, i32 %4, i32 %5,i32 0, <4 x float> addrspace(196608)* null, i32 0, i32 0, i32 0) %7 =extractelement <2 x i32> %6, i32 0 ; Check if lower half = 0x3, whichindicates that it is cleared %cleared = icmp eq i32 %7, 3 call void@discard(i1 %cleared) %8 = extractelement <2 x i32> %6, i32 1 %9 = call<4 x float> @ldmsptr.v4f32.p196608v4f32(i32 1, ...) %10 = extractelement<4 x float> %9, i32 0 %11 = extractelement <4 x float> %9, i32 1 %12 =extractelement <4 x float> %9, i32 2 %13 = extractelement <4 x float>%9, i32 3 %14 = call <4 x float> @ldmsptr.v4f32.p196608v4f32(i32 0, ...)%15 = extractelement <4 x float> %14, i32 0 %16 = extractelement <4 xfloat> %14, i32 1 %17 = extractelement <4 x float> %14, i32 2 %18 =extractelement <4 x float> %14, i32 3 %19 = fmul float %10, 5.000000e−01%20 = fmul float %11, 5.000000e−01 %21 = fmul float %12, 5.000000e−01%22 = fmul float %13, 5.000000e−01 %23 = fmul float %15, 5.000000e−01%24 = fadd float %23, %19 %25 = fmul float %16, 5.000000e−01 %26 = faddfloat %25, %20 %27 = fmul float %17, 5.000000e−01 %28 = fadd float %27,%21 %29 = fmul float %18, 5.000000e−01 %30 = fadd float %29, %22 callvoid @OUTPUT.f32(float %24, float %26, float %28, float %30, i32 0, i320) ret void }

In some embodiments, hardware within the graphics processing unit can beadapted to enable the operations described above to be performed in asingle operation. In one embodiment, the graphics processing logic canbe configured to use the MSAA control surface for a multisample rendertarget as a stencil buffer. In such configuration, only non-clearedpixels will be executed and clear pixels will be automatically killed(e.g., bypassed) during the resolve draw. The non-killed pixels willthen write out the averaged color. In this configuration, execution onthe cleared pixels is completely bypassed, which avoids divergencewithin the resolve shader.

In one embodiment, all pixels are dispatched and the resolve shader canread the MSAA control surface. If a pixel is cleared, the resolve shadercan issue a new write command, which writes to destination controlsurface to mark the pixel as cleared. Otherwise, the resolve shaderreads the samples from the source surface and outputs the averagedcolor. In this configuration, the separate control surface clear isskipped, allowing the draw operation to be performed using a singleprimitive. Furthermore, for a non-cleared pixel, only one write occurs.

FIG. 20 illustrates a process 2000 for performing stenciled MSAAresolve, according to an embodiment. As shown at block 2002, the process2000 includes configuring a graphics processor to perform a fast-clearoperation on a destination surface, as shown at block 2002. In oneembodiment the fast clear at block 2002 can be performed using the clearcolor of the source surface, which can involve a read of the sourceclear color, as in block 1702 of FIG. 17. In one embodiment, theoperation or instruction used to perform the fast clear of thedestination surface at block 2002 can cause the graphics processor toautomatically clear the destination surface using the clear color of anindicated source surface.

As shown at block 2004, the process 2000 additionally includes todispatch a stenciled MSAA resolve draw. The stenciled MSAA resolve drawoperates differently than a standard MSAA resolve in that themultisample metadata for the source surface is used as a stencil todetermine if the shader will operate on a given pixel. As shown at block2005, before the shader program is executed for a given pixel (orfragment), the shader unit can determine whether the multisamplemetadata indicates that the source data contains the clear color. If thesource data is clear at block 2005, the shader unit will not execute(e.g., bypass) the shader program for that pixel, as shown at block2006. If the source data is not clear, as determined at block 2005, theshader unit can execute the shader program at block 2008. As shown atblock 2010, the shader program can write an averaged color value that isan average of the color values of the various sample positionsassociated with a pixel. The illustrated process 2000 can be performedwithin a graphics processor having logic to support a stenciledmultisample resolve operation.

FIG. 21 illustrates exemplary graphics processing logic for a stenciledmultisample resolve, according to an embodiment. The graphics processorcomponents can be similar to the components illustrated in FIG. 18.Memory 2110 accessible to a shader unit 2102 can include a multisampledata 2112 containing color data for multiple planes 2112A-2112B, orother memory regions containing multisample color data. A source controlsurface 2114 contains metadata that indicates whether a given pixel isclear or, in one embodiment, whether multiple samples for the pixel canbe mapped to a single color. The memory 2110 also contains a destinationsurface 2116 and an associated destination control surface 2118. In oneembodiment, a first operational phase can be performed in which afast-clear is performed on the destination surface 2116 by writing tothe metadata in the destination control surface 2118 to set the pixelsof the destination surface 2216 to cleared.

Additionally, the shader unit 2102 can coupled with a cleared MSAA testunit 2104, which can test metadata within the source control surface2114 for a given pixel to determine if the pixel contains the clearedvalue. The cleared MSAA test unit 2104 can gate invocation of the shaderprogram within the shader unit 2102, such that if the source controlsurface indicates cleared source data, shader invocation for the pixelis entirely bypassed. Where multiple pixels are processed in parallel,bypassing invocation of the shader program prevents the various shaderthreads from diverging in the case of a clear pixel, as only shaderthreads that will write to the destination surface are processed by theshader unit 2102.

FIG. 22 illustrates an additional process 2200 for leveraging controlsurface fast clears to optimize 3D operations, according to anembodiment. In one embodiment, the process 2200 can be enabled by ashader unit to perform a single-pass optimized MSAA resolve. The process2200 of FIG. 22 differs from the process 1700 of FIG. 17 and the process2000 of FIG. 20 in that the initial fast clear of the destinationsurface is bypassed, enabling the resolve to be performed in a singlepass. In one embodiment a resolve draw is dispatched to a shader unit,as shown at block 2204. The resolve draw includes logic to determine, atblock 2205 whether a given source pixel is cleared. If the source iscleared, the resolve shader can issue a new write command on the shaderunit to write to the destination control surface, as shown at block2206. The new write command issued at block 2206 can write to themetadata in the destination control surface to set the pixel to clear.In one embodiment the new write command issued at block 2206 can beperformed independently of the shader program issuing the write command.If the source is not cleared and contains one or more color data valuesassociated with one or more samples of the pixel, the shader can readthe color data values for the source samples at block 2208. The shaderunit can then write a resolved color value to the destination at block2210. The resolved color value, in one embodiment, is an average colorvalue of the colors of the source samples read at block 2208.

FIG. 23 illustrates additional hardware logic for leveraging controlsurface fast clears to optimize 3D operations, according to anembodiment. The hardware logic of FIG. 23 can be used to implement theprocess 2200 of FIG. 22, and can include aspects that are similar to thegraphics processor components illustrated in FIG. 18 and FIG. 21. Thehardware logic of FIG. 23 includes memory 2310 that stores a multisamplesource surface 2312 having data associated with multiple samples2312A-2312B. The source surface 2312 can have an associated sourcecontrol surface 2314 to store metadata for the source surface 2312,including metadata that indicates whether a pixel within the sourcesurface is cleared. The memory 2310 can also store a destination surface2316 and an associated destination control surface 2318 that storesmetadata for the pixels of the destination surface. A shader unit 2302is also illustrated, which can execute or direct execution of a shaderprogram. The shader unit 2302 can include features of any of the shaderunits or shader execution units described herein. The shader unit 2302can be configured to execute a pixel shader or fragment shader program,and in one embodiment can execute general-purpose compute operations viaa compute shader.

In one embodiment, the shader unit, when executing the resolve shaderdispatched from the resolve draw at block 2204 of FIG. 22, can read thesource control surface 2314 to determine if a given pixel is cleared. Ifthe pixel is cleared, then the shader unit 2302 can issue a controlwrite 2322 to clear the metadata for the pixel within the destinationcontrol surface 2318. If the source pixel is not cleared, then thesource surface 2312 is read. The shader unit then computes a resolvedcolor result, which can be an average color value of the multiple colorvalues for the different samples, using a color write operation 2332,update the destination surface 2316 and destination control surface2318.

While the above description and examples make specific reference to MSAAresolve operations, the embodiments described herein are not limited toMSAA resolves. Similar software, shader, and hardware logic can beapplied optimize surface copies, texture initialization, mipmapgeneration, and other 3D operations in which the source surface includespixels having a cleared value. More generally, embodiments describedherein have been described with respect to specific cases of a broaderclass of optimizations for any operation that accepts a surface as inputand outputs some logical transformation of the input. As exemplifiedabove, some subset of the logical operations, reading of the input, andeven writing the output can be eliminated under certain conditions.

The optimization of the embodiments described herein can generatestatistically significant results when render operations are analyzedusing micro-benchmarking techniques. In some embodiments, the maximumcompression for MSAA and non-MSAA surfaces can be determined to besignificantly improved when performing MSAA resolve operations when allor part of the MSAA texture has been cleared, allowing consumed memorybandwidth to fall below the maximum possible lossless compression ratioavailable without such optimizations.

FIG. 24 is a block diagram of a computing device 2400 configured toperform optimized clear color rendering, according to an embodiment.Computing device 2400 (e.g., mobile computing device, desktop computer,etc.) may be the same or similar to the data processing system 100 ofFIG. 1, or any other computing device or data processing systemdescribed herein.

Computing device 2400 may include a mobile computing device (e.g.,smartphone, tablet computer, laptops, game consoles, portableworkstations, etc.) serving as a host machine for a graphics processor2404. The graphics processor 2404 may be a graphics rendering focusedgraphics processor, but can also include general-purpose compute unitsconfigured to perform general-purpose compute operations via the shaderengine 2424. The computing device 2400 may include any number and typeof communication devices, such as large computing systems, such asserver computers, desktop computers, etc., and may further includeset-top boxes (e.g., Internet-based cable television set-top boxes,etc.), global positioning system (GPS)-based devices, etc. The computingdevice 2400 may include mobile computing devices serving ascommunication devices, such as cellular phones including smartphones,personal digital assistants (PDAs), tablet computers, laptop computers,e-readers, smart televisions, television platforms, wearable devices(e.g., glasses, watches, bracelets, smartcards, jewelry, clothing items,etc.), media players, etc. For example, in one embodiment, the computingdevice 2400 includes a mobile computing device employing an integratedcircuit (“IC”), such as system on a chip (“SoC” or “SOC”), integratingvarious hardware and/or software components of computing device 2400 ona single chip.

In one embodiment, the graphics processor 2404 includes a cache 2414,which can be a framebuffer data cache, a rendering cache, or any othercache described herein. In one embodiment the cache 2414 can includemultiple internal level of cache memory. The cache 2414 can becontrolled by a cache controller 2434, which can store or addressmetadata for cache lines of the cache 2414. For example, the cachecontroller 2434 can store metadata that indicates that a cache line isassociated with clear data, or that all entries in a cache line are thesame color. In one embodiment, the graphics processor 2404 includes adisplay controller 2444 and a sampler 2454, each configured to samplefrom and display a framebuffer, texture, or another graphics surfacethat contains clear data. In one embodiment, the display controller 2444is a variant of the display controller 302 of FIG. 3 and/or the displayengine 840 of FIG. 4. The sampler 2454, in various embodiments, can bevariants of the samplers of FIG. 5 or FIG. 8.

As illustrated, in one embodiment the computing device 2400 may furtherinclude any number and type of hardware components and/or softwarecomponents, such as (but not limited to) an application processor 2406,memory 2408, and input/output (I/O) sources 2410. The applicationprocessor 2406 can interact with a hardware graphics pipeline asdescribed herein to enable heterogeneous graphics processing. Processeddata can be stored in a buffer in the hardware graphics pipeline, andstate information can be stored in memory 2408. The resulting image isthen transferred to a display component or device, such as displaydevice 320 of FIG. 3, for displaying. It is contemplated that thedisplay device may be of various types, such as Cathode Ray Tube (CRT),Thin Film Transistor (TFT), Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), Organic LightEmitting Diode (OLED) array, etc., to display information to a user.

The application processor 2406 can include one or processors, such asprocessor(s) 102 of FIG. 1, and may be the central processing unit (CPU)that is used at least in part to execute an operating system (OS) 2402for the computing device 2400. The OS 2402 can serve as an interfacebetween hardware and/or physical resources of the computer device 2400and a user. The OS 2402 can include driver logic 2421 including agraphics driver 2422. The graphics driver 2422 can include user modegraphics driver 1026 and/or kernel mode graphics driver 1029 of FIG. 10.The graphics driver 2422 can include fast clear rendering logic 2423 toconfigure operations utilizing the optimized clear color rendering viathe shader engine 2424 of the graphics processor 2404. In variousembodiments, the shader engine 2424 can include logic similar to afragment processor 1315A-1315N or shader core 1355A-1355N as in FIG.13A-13B, or any other shader processor described herein, such as theshader processors 507A-507F of FIG. 5. The shader engine 2424 caninclude or be associated with graphics execution resources as describedherein, such as, for example, the execution logic 600 of FIG. 6A-6B.

It is contemplated that in some embodiments, the graphics processor 2404may exist as part of the application processor 2406 (such as part of aphysical CPU package) in which case, at least a portion of the memory2408 may be shared by the application processor 2406 and graphicsprocessor 2404, although at least a portion of the memory 2408 may beexclusive to the graphics processor 2404, or the graphics processor 2404may have a separate store of memory.

The memory 2408 may comprise a pre-allocated region of a buffer (e.g.,framebuffer); however, it should be understood by one of ordinary skillin the art that the embodiments are not so limited, and that any memoryaccessible to the lower graphics pipeline may be used. The memory 2408may include various forms of random access memory (RAM) (e.g., SDRAM,SRAM, etc.) comprising an application that makes use of the graphicsprocessor 2404 to render a desktop or 3D graphics scene. A memorycontroller hub, such as memory controller hub 116 of FIG. 1, may accessdata in the RAM and forward it to graphics processor 2404 for graphicspipeline processing. The memory 2408 may be made available to othercomponents within the computing device 2400. For example, any data(e.g., input graphics data) received from various I/O sources 2410 ofthe computing device 2400 can be temporarily queued into memory 2408prior to their being operated upon by one or more processor(s) (e.g.,application processor 2406) in the implementation of a software programor application. Similarly, data that a software program determinesshould be sent from the computing device 2400 to an outside entitythrough one of the computing system interfaces, or stored into aninternal storage element, is often temporarily queued in memory 2408prior to its being transmitted or stored. In one embodiment, the memory2408 can also be used to store control surfaces as described herein.

The I/O sources can include devices such as touchscreens, touch panels,touch pads, virtual or regular keyboards, virtual or regular mice,ports, connectors, network devices, or the like, and can attach via aninput/output (I/O) control hub (ICH) 130 as referenced in FIG. 1.Additionally, the I/O sources 2410 may include one or more I/O devicesthat are implemented for transferring data to and/or from the computingdevice 2400 (e.g., a networking adapter); or, for a large-scalenon-volatile storage within the computing device 2400 (e.g., hard diskdrive). User input devices, including alphanumeric and other keys, maybe used to communicate information and command selections to graphicsprocessor 2404. Another type of user input device is cursor control,such as a mouse, a trackball, a touchscreen, a touchpad, or cursordirection keys to communicate direction information and commandselections to graphics processor 2404 and to control cursor movement onthe display device. Camera and microphone arrays of the computer device2400 may be employed to observe gestures, record audio and video and toreceive and transmit visual and audio commands.

I/O sources 2410 configured as network interfaces can provide access toa network, such as a LAN, a wide area network (WAN), a metropolitan areanetwork (MAN), a personal area network (PAN), Bluetooth, a cloudnetwork, a cellular or mobile network (e.g., 3^(rd) Generation (3G),4^(th) Generation (4G), etc.), an intranet, the Internet, etc. Networkinterface(s) may include, for example, a wireless network interfacehaving one or more antenna(e). Network interface(s) may also include,for example, a wired network interface to communicate with remotedevices via network cable, which may be, for example, an Ethernet cable,a coaxial cable, a fiber optic cable, a serial cable, or a parallelcable.

Network interface(s) may provide access to a LAN, for example, byconforming to IEEE 802.11 standards, and/or the wireless networkinterface may provide access to a personal area network, for example, byconforming to Bluetooth standards. Other wireless network interfacesand/or protocols, including previous and subsequent versions of thestandards, may also be supported. In addition to, or instead of,communication via the wireless LAN standards, network interface(s) mayprovide wireless communication using, for example, Time Division,Multiple Access (TDMA) protocols, Global Systems for MobileCommunications (GSM) protocols, Code Division, Multiple Access (CDMA)protocols, and/or any other type of wireless communications protocols.

It is to be appreciated that a lesser or more equipped system than theexample described above may be preferred for certain implementations.Therefore, the configuration of the computing device 2400 may vary fromimplementation to implementation depending upon numerous factors, suchas price constraints, performance requirements, technologicalimprovements, or other circumstances. Examples include (withoutlimitation) a mobile device, a personal digital assistant, a mobilecomputing device, a smartphone, a cellular telephone, a handset, aone-way pager, a two-way pager, a messaging device, a computer, apersonal computer (PC), a desktop computer, a laptop computer, anotebook computer, a handheld computer, a tablet computer, a server, aserver array or server farm, a web server, a network server, an Internetserver, a work station, a mini-computer, a main frame computer, asupercomputer, a network appliance, a web appliance, a distributedcomputing system, multiprocessor systems, processor-based systems,consumer electronics, programmable consumer electronics, television,digital television, set top box, wireless access point, base station,subscriber station, mobile subscriber center, radio network controller,router, hub, gateway, bridge, switch, machine, or combinations thereof.

Embodiments may be implemented as any one or a combination of: one ormore microchips or integrated circuits interconnected using hardwiredlogic, software stored by a memory device and executed by amicroprocessor, firmware, an application specific integrated circuit(ASIC), and/or a field programmable gate array (FPGA). The term “logic”may include, by way of example, software or hardware and/or combinationsof software and hardware.

Embodiments may be provided, for example, as a computer program productwhich may include one or more machine-readable media having storedthereon machine-executable instructions that, when executed by one ormore machines such as a computer, network of computers, or otherelectronic devices, may result in the one or more machines carrying outoperations in accordance with embodiments described herein. Amachine-readable medium may include, but is not limited to, floppydiskettes, optical disks, CD-ROMs (Compact Disc-Read Only Memories), andmagneto-optical disks, ROMs, RAMs, EPROMs (Erasable Programmable ReadOnly Memories), EEPROMs (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read OnlyMemories), magnetic or optical cards, flash memory, or other type ofmedia/machine-readable medium suitable for storing machine-executableinstructions.

Moreover, embodiments may be downloaded as a computer program product,wherein the program may be transferred from a remote computer (e.g., aserver) to a requesting computer (e.g., a client) by way of one or moredata signals embodied in and/or modulated by a carrier wave or otherpropagation medium via a communication link (e.g., a modem and/ornetwork connection).

The following clauses and/or examples pertain to specific embodiments orexamples thereof. Specifics in the examples may be used anywhere in oneor more embodiments. The various features of the different embodimentsor examples may be variously combined with some features included andothers excluded to suit a variety of different applications. Examplesmay include subject matter such as a method, means for performing actsof the method, at least one machine-readable medium includinginstructions that, when performed by a machine cause the machine toperform acts of the method, or of an apparatus or system according toembodiments and examples described herein. Various components can be ameans for performing the operations or functions described.

One embodiment provides a graphics processor comprising a hardwaregraphics rendering pipeline configured to perform multisampleanti-aliasing, the hardware graphics rendering pipeline including pixelprocessing logic to determine that each sample location of a pixel of amultisample surface is associated with a clear value and resolve a colorvalue for the pixel to a non-multisample surface via a write of metadatato indicate that the pixel has the clear value.

One embodiment provides for a method to resolve color data from amultisample render target, the method comprising dispatching amultisample resolve call to a shader unit, the shader unit to execute apixel shader program to generate a resolved color value from multiplesample locations of a multisample surface; determining, via the shaderunit, that a first pixel of the multisample render target contains is acleared pixel; and writing, via the shader unit, metadata to indicatethat the resolved color value for the first pixel is the color value ofa cleared pixel.

One embodiment provides for a data processing system comprising anon-transitory machine-readable medium to store instructions forexecution by one or more processors of the data processing system; amemory module to store a multisample render target; and a graphicsprocessing unit including a hardware graphics rendering pipelineconfigured to perform multisample anti-aliasing, wherein the hardwaregraphics rendering pipeline includes pixel processing logic to determinethat each sample location of a pixel of a multisample surface isassociated with a clear value and resolve a color value for the pixel toa non-multisample surface via a write of metadata to indicate that thepixel has the clear value.

One embodiment provides for a non-transitory machine-readable mediumstoring instructions to cause a processing system to perform operationscomprising reading a clear color associated with a source surface,wherein the source surface is a multisample surface; performing a fastclear on a destination surface, wherein the destination surface is anon-multisample surface and the fast clear is to set metadata associatedwith the destination surface to indicate that each pixel of thenon-multisample surface is set to the clear color; executing a resolveshader on a shader engine of the processing system, the resolve shaderto determine a resolved color value for pixels of the source surface;determining whether first pixel of the source surface is cleared; anddiscarding the first pixel in response to determining that the firstpixel of the source surface is cleared. In one embodiment the operationsadditionally include determining that first pixel of the source surfaceis cleared by reading a source control surface associated with thesource surface; and setting metadata associated with the destinationsurface in a destination control surface associated with the destinationsurface. In one embodiment, performing the fast clear on the destinationsurface includes setting the clear color associated with the destinationsurface to the clear color associated with the source surface.

One embodiment provides for a graphics processor comprising a hardwaregraphics rendering pipeline configured to perform multisampleanti-aliasing for a multisample surface in a memory associated with thegraphics processor, the hardware graphics rendering pipeline includingpixel processing logic to perform a fast clear on a non-multisamplesurface in the memory associated with the graphics processor, the fastclear to set metadata associated with the non-multisample surface toindicate that each pixel of the non-multisample surface is set to aclear color value and dispatch a stenciled multisample resolve draw to ashader unit of the hardware graphics rendering pipeline to conditionallygenerate color data for the non-multisample surface based on pixel datain the multisample surface. The shader unit can execute a pixel shaderprogram to generate a resolved color value from one or more samplelocations of a pixel of a multisample surface. The shader unit canconditionally execute the pixel shader program for a pixel of themultisample surface based on a control surface for the multisamplesurface, the control surface stored in the memory associated with thegraphics processor.

One embodiment provides for a graphics processor system comprising amemory to store a multisample surface, a source control surface for themultisample surface, a non-multisample surface, and a destinationcontrol surface for the non-multisample surface and a hardware graphicsrendering pipeline configured to perform multisample anti-aliasing. Thehardware graphics rendering pipeline includes pixel processing logic todispatch a multisample resolve draw to a shader unit of the hardwaregraphics rendering pipeline to generate color data for thenon-multisample surface. The shader unit can execute a pixel shaderprogram to generate a resolved color value from one or more samplelocations of a pixel of a multisample surface. The pixel shader programcan cause the shader unit to read the source control surface for a pixelof the multisample surface to determine a clear status for the pixel ofthe multisample surface and dispatch a new write command to write aclear status to the destination control surface for a pixel of thenon-multisample surface based on the clear status for the pixel of themultisample surface.

One embodiment provides for a method to resolve color data from amultisample surface to a non-multisample surface in a memory associatedwith a hardware graphics rendering pipeline, the method comprisingdispatching a multisample resolve call to a shader unit of the hardwaregraphics rendering pipeline. The shader unit can execute a pixel shaderprogram to generate a first resolved color value from multiple samplelocations of the multisample surface. The method additionally comprisesdetermining, via metadata associated with a first pixel of themultisample surface, that the first pixel is set to a clear color value.The metadata associated with the first pixel is stored in a sourcecontrol surface in the memory associated with the hardware graphicsrendering pipeline. The method additionally comprises bypassing, by theshader unit, execution of the pixel shader program for the first pixelin response to determining that the first pixel is set to the clearcolor value. In one embodiment, the shader unit can dispatch a new writecommand to write metadata to indicate that the first resolved colorvalue for the first pixel is the clear color value. The new writecommand can be dispatched in response to determining that the firstpixel is set to the clear color value. In one embodiment a fast clearcan be performed on the non-multisample surface before dispatching themultisample resolve call instead of dispatching a new write command forclear pixels on the multisample surface.

Of course, one or more parts of an embodiment may be implemented usingdifferent combinations of software, firmware, and/or hardware.Throughout this detailed description, for the purposes of explanation,numerous specific details were set forth in order to provide a thoroughunderstanding of the present invention. It will be apparent, however, toone skilled in the art that the embodiments may be practiced withoutsome of these specific details. In certain instances, well-knownstructures and functions were not described in elaborate detail to avoidobscuring the inventive subject matter of the embodiments. Accordingly,the scope and spirit of the invention should be judged in terms of theclaims that follow.

1-20. (canceled)
 21. A graphics processor comprising: a hardwaregraphics rendering pipeline configured to perform multisampleanti-aliasing for a multisample surface in a memory associated with thegraphics processor, the hardware graphics rendering pipeline includingpixel processing circuitry to: resolve pixel data in the multisamplesurface via conditional generation of color data for a non-multisamplesurface in the memory associated with the graphics processor, theconditional generation performed based on a source control surface forthe multisample surface, wherein the conditional generation of the colordata includes to: invoke a pixel shader to resolve a first pixel of themultisample surface in response to a determination that one or moresample locations of the first pixel are associated with a non-clearcolor value; and bypass invocation of the pixel shader for a secondpixel in response to a determination that each sample location of thesecond pixel is associated with a clear color value.
 22. The graphicsprocessor as in claim 21, the pixel processing circuitry including:first circuitry to execute the pixel shader for the first pixel inresponse to invocation of the pixel shader for the first pixel; andsecond circuitry to gate invocation of the pixel shader for the secondpixel based on metadata for the second pixel stored in the sourcecontrol surface.
 23. The graphics processor as in claim 22, wherein toexecute the pixel shader for the first pixel includes to write aresolved color value for sample locations of the first pixel of themultisample surface to the non-multisample surface, wherein the resolvedcolor value is an average color value of sample locations of the firstpixel.
 24. The graphics processor as in claim 22, wherein to gateinvocation of the pixel shader for the second pixel is to preventdivergence of a shader thread associated with the second pixel.
 25. Thegraphics processor as in claim 24, wherein the second circuitry is totest the metadata for the second pixel within the source control surfaceto determine if the metadata indicates that the second pixel is set tothe clear color value.
 26. The graphics processor as in claim 25,wherein to test the metadata for the second pixel includes to test ametadata value associated with each of a plurality of sample locationsof the second pixel.
 27. The graphics processor as in claim 26, thepixel processing circuitry to dispatch a stenciled multisample resolvedraw to the pixel processing circuitry to conditionally generate thecolor data for the non-multisample surface.
 28. The graphics processoras in claim 27, wherein to conditionally generate the color data for thenon-multisample surface includes to set the clear color value of thenon-multisample surface to the clear color value of the multisamplesurface.
 29. The graphics processor as in claim 27, wherein in responseto a determination that each sample location of the second pixel isassociated with a clear color value, the pixel processing circuitry isto issue a write command to write metadata for the second pixel to adestination control surface for the non-multisample surface, themetadata for the second pixel to indicate that the second pixel resolvesto the clear color value.
 30. The graphics processor as in claim 29,wherein the pixel processing circuitry is to process the write commandindependently of the pixel shader.
 31. A graphics processing systemcomprising: a memory; and a graphics processor coupled with the memory,the graphics processor including a hardware graphics rendering pipelineconfigured to resolve a multisample surface in memory of the graphicsprocessor to a non-multisample surface, the hardware graphics renderingpipeline including pixel processing circuitry to: determine that eachsample location of a first pixel of a multisample surface is associatedwith a clear value; resolve a color value for the first pixel to thenon-multisample surface via a write of metadata to a destination controlsurface, the metadata to indicate that the first pixel has the clearvalue; determine that one or more sample locations of a second pixel ofthe multisample surface contains a non-clear value; read a clear colorvalue associated with the multisample surface, the clear color value toindicate a color associated with the clear value; and write a resolvedcolor value for the second pixel of the multisample surface to thenon-multisample surface, wherein the resolved color value is an averagecolor value of sample locations of the second pixel.
 32. The graphicsprocessing system as in claim 31, wherein the pixel processing circuitryis further to write metadata to the destination control surface toindicate that the second pixel has a non-clear value.
 33. The graphicsprocessing system as in claim 31, wherein the pixel processing circuitryis to determine that each sample location of the first pixel isassociated with the clear value via a read of a source control surfaceassociated with the multisample surface, the source control surface tostore metadata for the multisample surface, wherein the pixel processingcircuitry is to determine that multiple sample locations of the secondpixel are associated with a single non-clear color value via a read ofmetadata for the second pixel from the source control surface associatedwith the multisample surface.
 34. The graphics processing system as inclaim 31, wherein the write of the metadata to the destination controlsurface for the first pixel is associated with a fast clear performed onthe non-multisample surface, the fast clear to set metadata associatedwith the non-multisample surface to indicate that each pixel of thenon-multisample surface is set to the clear color.
 35. A methodcomprising: performing multisample anti-aliasing for a multisamplesurface in a memory associated with a graphics processor; resolvingpixel data in the multisample surface via conditional generation ofcolor data for a non-multisample surface in the memory associated withthe graphics processor, the conditional generation performed based on asource control surface for the multisample surface, wherein theconditional generation of the color data includes: invoking a pixelshader to resolve a first pixel of the multisample surface in responseto a determination that one or more sample locations of the first pixelare associated with a non-clear color value; and bypassing invocation ofthe pixel shader for a second pixel in response to a determination thateach sample location of the second pixel is associated with a clearcolor value.
 36. The method as in claim 35, further comprising:executing the pixel shader for the first pixel in response to invocationof the pixel shader for the first pixel via first circuitry of ahardware graphics rendering pipeline of the graphics processor; andgating invocation of the pixel shader for the second pixel via secondcircuitry of the hardware graphics rendering pipeline based on metadatafor the second pixel stored in the source control surface.
 37. Themethod as in claim 36, wherein executing the pixel shader for the firstpixel includes writing a resolved color value for the one or more samplelocations of the pixel of the multisample surface to the non-multisamplesurface, wherein the resolved color value is an average color value ofsample locations of the first pixel.
 38. The method as in claim 36,wherein gating invocation of the pixel shader for the second pixelprevents divergence of a shader thread associated with the second pixeland the second circuitry is to test the metadata for the second pixelwithin the source control surface to determine if the metadata indicatesthat the second pixel is set to the clear color value, wherein to testthe metadata for the second pixel includes to test a metadata valueassociated with each of a plurality of sample locations of the secondpixel.
 39. The method as in claim 38, wherein the conditional generationof the color data includes setting the clear color value of thenon-multisample surface to the clear color value of the multisamplesurface.
 40. The method as in claim 38, wherein in response to adetermination that each sample location of the second pixel isassociated with a clear color value, issuing, via pixel processingcircuitry of the graphics processor a write command to write metadatafor the second pixel to a destination control surface for thenon-multisample surface, the metadata for the second pixel to indicatethat the second pixel resolves to the clear color value, wherein thepixel processing circuitry is to process the write command independentlyof the pixel shader.